Yello Kitty

Here it is -- the finished Yello Kitty top, along with my own yellow kitty:

 

And here it is without the embellishment:

and one of my favorite details:

I had so much fun with this, partly because it includes the tail ends of some of the first quilt fabrics I ever bought, and a few pieces (like that cat in the detail) left from quilts I made for special people years ago.

a little birdie told me...

That I needed to show off this cute little sparrow -- there were tons of them on the walks that we did in the morning, but this one let me get about 5 feet away and snap a few photos.

And these are some of my favorite California natives from the Coast Botanical Garden near Fort Bragg -- they're called Matilija Poppies and they'll get about 5 feet tall -- they have wonderful texture and translucence!

The gardens are terrific, by the way. If you ever go to Mendocino, you must take the tiny detour north to visit them.

Diversion in yellow

Well, the kitty top is done (but you'll have to wait until scrappy Saturday for the reveal!) -- and I STILL have more yellow scraps.

So, I started on this little goody -- maybe a pillow cover? And there is still a pile of little bits. Is anyone interested in small scraps -- defined as something I can't cut a 2.5 inch square from but bigger than 1 inch? Let me know 'cause I'd be happy to ship them off!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Moo

Just one more from the beach -- a very large driftwood cow! Wouldn't Georgia O'Keefe have loved this?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

A day at the beach

I'm working away at the kitty, but took some time for a beach excursion this morning before the fog rolled in... The sand was littered with kelp in various stages of decay, but this was a very fresh one -- looked like a sea-snake to me!

My no-blog friend Ma Smalls has an interesting collection of kelp people and I was tempted to bring this as a souvenir... but tought better of it.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

My favorite tree

I was so happy to see that this crazy tree still exists, even though I haven't driven through Manchester, CA for probably ten years.
(There are still white geese behind the wooden fence in Mendocino, too -- I first photographed them about 40 years ago!)
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Yellow kitty -- round 2

Had a wonderful lazy day today (after a 4-mile walk this morning) with nothing but reading, sewing, and food! Capped it off with whale sightings from the local fishing pier... A first for me.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Yellow Kitty

Here's part 1 of the yellow scraps project -- and I have a lot more yellow! Hoping to work on this a little each day while I'm on vacation this week on the Mendocino coast. Stay tuned!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

testing testing

I'm just trying out the new blog editor to see if I like it any better than I did the last time I tried it.  My signature works better, for one thing!  And it seems to use the font I want instead of reverting to "times new roman" every time.

Now I remember -- I could never get the photos to show up properly. Seems like blogger says you can load them one at a time and they'll show up where your cursor is instead of all loading at the top of the page, but that doesn't happen.

This leaf showed up the first time at the top of the page, and the second time before the second paragraph instead of after it. However it does let you drag them around more easily now.

Must be time for a glass of wine...

technical question

When I do a blog post from my laptop, my signature works fine. However, when I do a post from my desktop at home, the signature doesn't work.

Since I'm starting from the same dashboard/same template in both cases, does anyone have a clue why this would be happening?

a zombie ate my yarn

Isn't this a lovely sock? I bought the yarn from a local dyer at the fiber festival a year or two ago -- it's called "Zombie Apocalypse". Only trouble is... I wound the skein into two balls, and now that I've finished the first sock the second ball has completely disappeared! Aaaargh -- I've looked everywhere. I even asked Al if he had seen it . (He was kind enough to NOT say a word about my overgrown yarn, fabric, etc. stash and no wonder I couldn't find it, but then don't get me started about the condition of the basement and garage!)

I figure someday 20 years from now when we move into assisted living, the extra ball will turn up...

I have two nephews turning 4 this year, and that seems like the perfect age for a super-hero cape! One of them got mailed off already, but here's the second -- all done ahead of time for a July birthday:

Both of the boys have names starting with "G" so I got enough practice with that letter. The inside of this cape has fabric that's actually supposed to be sunflower leaves, but I thought it looked sort of mysterious-magical!

I found the pattern online at the Longthread site-- lots of cool ideas there.

the winner is...

#6 is LC -- one of several Canadians who left comments! Please send me your address and I will package up your book! Thanks to all of you who visited.

my poor, sad zinnias

Can you count the snails in this picture?

I planted a 6-pack of orange zinnias about 10 days ago... just when they started to settle in, the marauding hordes arrived, and now there are just stems. The snails had been leaving the (old) pansies alone but since the zinnia supply is gone they're taking out the pansies, too. I can't tell you how many snails I've pitched into the street already! Wicked, I know...

Don't forget the "Happy Villages" giveaway -- leave a comment if you'd like to be entered in the drawing tomorrow.

Next up: super-heroes!

400th post giveaway!

But before I get to the giveaway -- it's YELLOW month at the scrappy rainbow challenge. While digging around for yellow scraps, I found this "what was she thinking" bit of applique (along with more yellow scraps than I expected) so I'm planning a sort of medallion quilt around the patchwork kitty. More to follow...
For my 400th post, I'm giving away a copy of Karen Eckmeier's Happy Villages book.
I took a class with her at Long Beach a couple of years ago and STILL haven't finished quilting my village because I can't figure out what thread I started it with and everything else I've tried looks funny. It's on my list of projects to absolutely get done this year, though.

Aside from my thread issues, though, it's a very fun process and everyone's village is unique. I think it would be great for a mini-group or a retreat -- just leave me a comment if you'd like a chance at the book. I'll draw a winner on Wednesday morning, June 8. Thanks for reading!

3 finishes (and a cat)

Looks like the cat comes first! Bucky seems to spend a good deal of his awake time (which is about an hour per day) peering around corners. The remaining time is spent wrestling with every small rug in the house...

I finished the mystery shawlette a couple of days ago -- it's perfect for the cold rainy weather we've been having. We're calling it "June-uary". It's back to wearing sweaters in the house!

Here's a detail -- I think I'm hooked on lace now.Quilty stuff, too! Here is the teal strip quilt, needing to be washed and fluffed up a bit.
And my UFO challenge project from March. This was a stay-at-home round robin I started several years ago. I'm not sure what ever happened to the rest of the project -- maybe I just "lost" the website where it was hosted.

Now I'm off to the kitchen to make soup to go with the weather. I think this is my 399th post, for what for a celebratory give-away coming soon for #400!