Someone had a 1/2 Birthday!

Here's what's going on...



::  Fall naps on or with a quilt is a must
::  Apples abound for homemade applesauce
::  Sammy never tires of playing fetch with her favorite toy of the day

::  The pups are getting more and more alike and same-sized.  Getting harder to tell them apart at first glance
::  I got my hairs cut and am loving my bangs
::  Puppy butts.  As in, taking lots and lots of fall weather walks

::  This is a tree in which I am nearly 99% sure that faeries live in
::  Good hard chewing bones are a must on those colder rainy days to entertain the pup
::  Sammy may be everyone's shadow, but 1st she is Katie's shadow.  It's more evident lately that Sammy wants to be exactly like Katie when she grows up.  We just hope that's sooner, than later. 

p.s. Sammy had her half birthday recently.  She's is officially 1 and 1/2 years old.  Aww!

Falling for Fall

 Hello, Fall!  My, oh my, have we been enjoying you... let me count the ways!

::  Got to spend some one-on-one time with Katie... even if it was taking her to the vet.
::  We've been staring at the trees, marvelling at the colors, and laughing at the falling leaves.

::  We have been enjoying naps and snuggling on the couch.  Especially when there is a fire is in the fireplace.
::  We have been totally enjoying every minute of football.  It almost doesn't even matter who is playing, as long as it's a good match up.  Bonus points if it's a Giants game and we Giants fans can live the game play by play.  It's not a quiet thing.

::  We have been enchanted by the deep blues of a clear fall day or the clever patterns of the clouds.
::  We have napped in other places.  The four legged babes are dropping off quick from all the time moving outdoors.

::  We've groomed trails for hiking.  Thing are a little tidier and blocked paths are more ready to recieve visitors.
::  I've sewn in preparation for the Pat Pauly art quilting class I am taking tomorrow.  More on that soon!

::  I've continued my hand sewing adventure on the healing cloth that I started earlier.
::  We stopped to play in the sand (at the lake beach).  It was a great reminder to slow down and enjoy the sunshine.

::  The pups were bathed.  It was a long time coming, but Ms. Sammy helped things along by rolling in and attaching poo to her head.  Smelly business.  They are so soft and fluffy now.  It won't last, but it was a nice reminder that they clean up alright!
::  I have packed a ton of my favorite fabrics for the art quilting workshop I mentioned above (the one with Pat Pauly).  It's called Slash and Burn.  I'm nervous... but it's that good kind of nervous.  The kind when you know something special is about to happen!  It's all about improv creating.  I promise I will share more on the experience.

...and as always, if you'd like to see more of what's Happy in the moment... I'm instagramming up a storm; @cwiltex gets you there!

Ten Things Tuesday {& Mail Call}

The weather has been totally amazing and I have to admit that the whole Happy family has been finding every excuse to get outside and soak it all in.

There's always a lot of work to be done outside, but my goodness the amount of wood we have to split and move and stack and organize!  This effort is the result of the big heavy oak trees that came down in our October snow storm.  It's getting done little by little.  I am mostly in charge of the moving and stacking part. 

Sammy, who is still learning her off leash manners, found a very comfortable napping spot among the logs.  Those big heavy pieces also provided a great tie off spot for her lead!

Katie has been no slouch taking in the sunshine.  In fact, I know that I could even learn a thing or two about how she has mastered living in the moment. 

Fully.  Completely.  Like no one's watching.  Or she doesn't have a care!

Doesn't she just have the best smile!

One of Sammy's favorite things is ice cubes.  With the recent warm weather I got to introduce her to the floating ice cube game.  Take one dog bowl filled with water.  Dump in a handful of ice cubes.  And then prepare to laugh your stomach into knots as the dogs go bobbing for ice. 

Katie still snorkels with her nose in the water with this game.  Cracks me up every time!

I also got a package all the way from Australia!!  And I couldn't feel luckier to be able to give a home to these lovely treats!!  This was all a part of a fun pincushion and surprise swap I did with Megan from Silver Threads of Happiness.  Megan, thank you so very much!

I will be hanging this awesome crocheted mushroom in my sewing area and I just love the colors she picked... and look at how adorable the grass is!!  I also got those cute little glass mushroom beads.  Can you tell I have a thing for mushrooms?  I can't wait to dream up the perfect project for them!

The little tin is so very adorable (it had the glass beads tucked away in there)... I think I will be re-using the tin to hold my sewing bobbins.  Seems like the perfect size!  And coffee!!  I start my day with a nice big cup and I can't wait to try this one!

And then there are the pincushions.  In fact, I think these are what started the whole swapping thing.  I think I left Megan a comment saying how darn cute they were... and she offered to make me one... and I was very excited and wanted to make her something.  Next thing you know... we're swapping!!

I hope you can see how fantastic that forest and mushroom fabric is.  And yes, I got two pincushions!!  Pinch me!  They both have the same fabric on the back... and then one is decorated with the ric-rack while the other has a beautiful lace on the front.  They are so pretty.. how am I ever going to stick them full of pins?  

I feel so lucky for the friends I am meeting through this little blog of mine.  Amazing to know that real connections are still very present and even more fun when I find someone who understands my love of all things forests and mushrooms!!  *hugs, Megan*

Well, and that about does it.  Is spring springing where you are?  Spring things that are waking up here, like the tree in our back yard.  Did you spot Katie in this one? 

You know, this tree has bloomed each spring for the two years we have been in our house... and I kept saying that I wanted to get a picture of it.  It goes quick.  And now I can finally say I have one! 

Aren't these blooms amazing?

The Beginning of "At Sunrise"

Does your sewing area ever look like this?  Come on, be honest with yourself!

Ya, mine too.  Sometimes I am going so fast and creating a ton of things at once that I skip the cleaning part of quilt making all together.  Actually, I'm not really sure cleaning is really a step anyway.

Here is my cleaning remedy...  confetti quilting.

Grab a handy piece of fabric that you might not find yourself using in your quilting any time soon.  This is also a good way to use up fabrics that were doomed for the trash.

Cut a piece of left over batting about the same size as the backing fabric and place it on top.

Now start to layer up those small bits, pieces, threads, batting and lace that are taking over your sewing station (anything that you can sew through can be put down at this stage). 

When I do get the urge to clean I take the time to separate my scraps... my large ones get folded and put in a drawer, my medium pieces are put in jars by color, and the tiniest bits get tucked into this fishing tackle container until it starts to overflow like this.

Using your rotary cutter or scissors cut the fabrics by color into toothpick sized bits.  This makes up the confetti that you will 'paint' with for your confetti quilt.

Here I am applying my confetti bits.  It's very scientific (har, har!).. I take a large handful of red... and toss, toss, scatter.  Repeat with the next color.  Really it's very freeing!

Keep adding and layering.  Remember to mix colors and textures.  Prints and solids can be used and the idea is to cover up every spot of batting although I do leave about an inch and 1/2 edge all the way around the piece.

I also found that a little hand mixing or spreading once the confetti was down helps 'smudge' the colors together.  Don't be shy to get your hands in there.

Once you have the colors you want, lay a large piece of tulle over the top and pin it down -- I use large quilting safety pins, but don't pin them shut so they are easier to remove as I'm quilting.  Next, I sewed the larger piece all the way around the outside (to secure the tulle) and then into smaller quadrants to hold the confetti approximately in place. 

The smaller quadrants also allowed me to adjust confetti pieces later as needed. 

And now you work to secure all the confetti pieces with free motion quilting.  I did wavy and swirly lines back and forth to create the sky texture and clouds from the sunrise picture I was working from.  I used pink, red, orange, yellow, blue, and purple threads to add to the overall feel.

Now that I had the background to my liking it was time for me to add the trees!  I cut out strips of black fabric... in this case an old collared work shirt my husband was ready to toss... and started to arrange them.

In this step, I also added a second layer of batting and backing... as an experiment mostly.  The background was getting a bit flat from all the quilting and I wanted the trees to take on more dimension.  It has made the quilting a bit more tricky, but I like the resulting texture.  Definitely something I can see playing around with again.

I pinned things in place once I had them to my liking.

This is the view from my window which shows the same trees I am trying to create in this piece, just from a slightly different angle.  Fun to think I am capturing them in this way!  And really fun to study how branches connect and overlap.

Yup, you guessed it.  More free motion to secure the trees.  I also found that using my walking foot worked well on the longer pieces. 

I also tried to run both black and dark brown thread through my needle.  And it did work, but I think it would work better with thread colors from the same brand.  The brown kept breaking (driving me nuts) and I decided to just use the black to keep me from pulling all my hair out. 

My last note here is that I also ended up changing my needle from a 14 to a 16... I think the extra thickness from the double batting was better dealt with by a needle meant for tougher sewing.  How did I know to change needles?  Well... I snapped the 14 after just a few inches... so that clued me in to try something else.

Here is a look at all the main trees quilted into place in a ray of sunshine pouring onto my desk.  And what glorious sunshine we had this weekend!

At this point I cut off the extra edge and the tulle that had been hanging off the edge (and getting caught in my sewing machine).  Funny how such a small thing as cutting closer to the final edge made this piece mature very fast!

And what would trees be without the hundreds of branches and limbs going this way and that?  I went back to free motion quilting and without marking set out create branches. 

I have really enjoyed this part!!  After a few more hours I managed to add branches to every tree.  And this also means that I completed my One Thing, One Week Challenge goal that I set for myself over at Amy's Creative Side.

Late last night I was trying to determine if it needed any other branches.  Of course the longer you stare at something the more you stop seeing it.  So, I decided it was a good point to walk away.  I am looking forward to getting back to this later in the day and deciding if it's in need of anything or done. 

Last step will be a pressing and binding.  And goodness me... I've no clue what color to bind with.  Hoping that idea comes to me soon -- or if you have any thoughts.. do share!!

I appologize for the extra long post, but it feels really nice to document this piece... I have a feeling it's going straight to the top of my favorites list. 

What did you work on this weekend?  And I will share the second half of our maple sugaring adventures tomorrow!

A Tree Tapping Good Time

I'd like to remind you that we live more or less in the forest. Living in the forest means there are a lot of trees. Now, some of those trees are maple trees.  And maple trees are where maple syrup comes from...

...see where I'm going with this? 

A note before we continue... I have never done this before.  I am under the direct supervision of the Mister who did this growing up.  This whole process is totally amazing to me.  And I am seriously worse than a little kid running around checking all my buckets and their progress.  Crazy!

If you would rather read about professionals doing it and a more serious how to... this is a pretty good read.

Ok, so it all started with getting our buckets, spouts, hooks, and lids ready.

The Mister was so smart to mark a bunch of maples with a small dot of spray paint last fall, so that this time of year when their are no leaves we can still tell the maples from the oaks. 

Each of the trees got a small hole drilled into them.

Then you insert the spout and tap it in gently.  And at this step some of the trees quickly started leaking sap.  So dang exciting!

The buckets have a small hole that is used to rest them on the hook under the spout.  Then you cover the bucket with a lid and wait. 

And yes, of course, the dogs were snooping around trying to figure out if we were doing anything that resulted in food for them.  (Isn't Sammy getting big?)

We put up a total of 14 buckets and I just adore the look of them around the property!!  It all feels so farm-like! 

And no, I have no idea how much syrup we will be making.  I think you need something like 40 gallons of sap to boil down yielding about 1 gallon of syrup.  I told the Mister that I would be clam happy with enough for one breakfast.  Ha!

It's pretty cool to have a purpose outside this time of year as one can constantly fiddle with and check the sap levels in the bucket.  I also found out quickly that I adore the calming effect of listening to the steady drip drop sounds of the sap methodically filling the bucket. 



Nature is amazing!  I feel so in tune with my primitive self and maple sugaring is nurturing my need of getting my hands in the dirt to be more self sufficient.  We'll see if I still feel that way after we boil down the first batch of sap. 

...to be continued!

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And thank you for all the well wishes after my wisdom teeth removal.  All four are out.  I have made it to day three of recovery and I'm feeling pretty good.  The next step is getting back to normal food.... and I think I'm well on my way!

Holiday Wishes & Cheer!

Hope you enjoyed a lovely Christmas!! 

Wishing you & your family love, peace

and an amazing start to the new year!

Almost Winter Hiking

A few more snaps of our recent time spent outdoors.  For the last three weeks, every chance we had, we would get up before it was light and dash out the door to enjoy the woods. 

It's creeping on to that time of the year that we don't wander as far or as often.  But I'm hoping this late dose of hiking will carry me through the winter months.

Our lake on a crisp, clear, still morning.

One of the first times I have seen such a calm water surface.  Just stunning to see double the amount of trees through the water reflection!

We wandered upon a few root cellars (or stone structures) that were built long ago.  This is the one we normally see from the trail.

This is a new to us root cellar that we found tucked into the hillside not far from where we normally wander.

A closer look through the opening.  And swear the mister and I talked ourselves into the fact that a bear might be nesting in this one.  So much so that I snapped this in a hurry as we rushed off.

This is an old well that I nearly stumbled into.

And this is the third one we saw on the same day. 

A closer look at the front.  Love how it really nestled into the ground!

The sun has been brilliant; even with the weird fall angle in comes down in.

And the woods around us never fail to spark my imagination and remind me how beautiful the world is.

And it just me, or do the few greens that are left look alive and brilliant?  Just takes my breath away.

Wishing you peace and center as we are about to leap into full festivities.  Do so with a clear mind and an open heart so that we may continue on our paths to kick start 2012 with a bang!!