Unplugging Felt Right!

I'm back.  Didn't know I was going to be gone for a week, but it did feel good to unplug a bit. 

I'm looking forward to catching up with you and your blogs... I have over 500 posts in my reader, but will make my way through them shortly.  I'm sure there is some great inspiration in that reading!! 

What have I been up to?  Mostly family stuff.  Lots of getting outside, soaking in sunshine, and training Sammy.  We even ripped out the old floor in our laundry room and are in the process of putting down new tile.  My kind of way to spend a long holiday weekend!  Never a dull moment in the Happy family. 

Did I mention we hiked a bunch over the weekend too?  The long walks are good exercise for us all, but they are especially good for draining all that excess puppy energy!

Our walks are through a preserved woods trail around a lake and there are lots of fallen logs that we simply hop over.  

Watch out Katie... Sammy is coming through!

Want to see Sammy jump one more time?  She is lining up.  Making her approach. 

And whoosh!  She is over it so elegantly.  And just look at those ears flopping as she jumps!

So, where was I?  Ah yes, precious, relaxing family time.  A reminder to take in the small things and linger a little longer than our busy schedules allow most times. 

A a chance to have the biggest belly laughs at puppies with sticks.  The simple things!! 

Hope you had a stellar weekend and look forward to showing you my latest finish later today! (hint... it's the dress challenge!!)

Friday Finish {NY-NY Quilt}

I have finally taken pictures of my finished NY-NY quilt!!  And here they are!  Looking at these picture... the fall/winter sun is pretty harsh... I may try and retake a few this weekend, but that said I still wanted to share the quilt!

I free hand drew the shape of NY state and then using reverse applique I cut out the state.  Nerve wrecking and awesome at the same time. 

The gray portion is one full yard and then I added the border to make it about 55 x 40 for a decent lap size quilt.

The backing is simply a yard of awesome NYC green fabric with the coolest version of the statue of liberty!  The cream border is that minky-like soft fabric I also used on Big Blue.

I added a little hand sewn heart to personalize this quilt -- marking a special birthplace.

The quilting is hard to see, but on NY State I added in all the major highways and roads in yellow thread from Long Island to Albany, and Niagara Falls toward Canada.  It was a really fun exercise to learn what roads stretched the length of the state.

And then I did echo quilting around the shape of the state in the gray fabric.

A closer look at the back.

All rolled up and ready to go!

Yes, of course I had to dangle it from a tree.

And just for a fun a flying down to the ground shot....

...because it landed with such grace.

Hoping you are ending or starting your week with grace!!  Have a lovely weekend... and wish me luck...I'm still sewing till my arms fall off :)

View from the Couch

The new house has a fireplace which we ooohhed and aahhhed over when we first looked at it. So naturally, now that we've moved in, we took the first chance we could once and had ourselves a nice little fire!

Feels sinful, but we got one of the small bundles of wood from the grocery store that ends up costing you probably $1 per log... told you... sinful!

Having that fire has sparked our interest... (get it? sparked... hahaha!)... in getting a delivery of wood to the house.

When you purchase wood you are buying a unit called a cord. I was curious and had to look up what the heck that meant. Looks like a 'full' cord measures 4 ft. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. That's a big pile of wood. Figure the little bundle we used was a mere maybe 1 ft x 6 in. x 6 in (4 log chunks).... I think you get the point, right? It was small!

So at a rate of using let's say 5-10 pieces of wood for a fire... and having a fire every night for the next six months... that's 172 days.... with an average of 7.5 pieces of wood used per day... and at that rate I don't think we'll even have made a noticeable dent in the pile.

My point is that's a lot of happiness, right?

Fire's are intriguing, relaxing, warming, and delightful! I could seriously stare into a fire and let my imagination go for hours! I am looking forward to curling up under a blanket and reading a book or five by the fire. I will enjoy spending time playing in the snow with the dog and then running inside to stand by the fire to warm up only to run out again and play some more. My other favorites are roasting marshmallows over a fire, making pudgy pies, and drinking wine by firelight! Oohhh... and popcorn and movies by fire!

Do you get the impression that you will soon start to hear a lot about things we have done by the fire?

If I was to tell you that I was going to give you a cord of happiness.. err I mean logs ... you now know that's A LOT of happiness!

I will be sure to snap pictures of that big pile of happiness when it's dumped on our drive way later this week!