I dare you

I dare you to have a better birthday than I've just had!  I don't think it can be done!  It's mostly when you're a kid that you really expect to do exciting stuff and have your every whim indulged on your birthday - but I got it this weekend!  I took my birthday off work (it was Friday - so why not?) and I told the fella that what I really wanted was to wake up, and read in bed for as long as I wanted to!  then I asked for scrambled eggs and toast - which he took a step further and made FOR me, AND served it on a tray (which he had to go out shopping for the previous day!) in bed - along with a little paper flower that he made and stuck in a vase!  Then I wanted to go to Jungle Jim's!  Some people might kind of think that's like grocery shopping on your birthday, but Jungle Jim's is not grocery shopping in my book!  We had a great time and got some fantastic stuff!  We got four different cheeses and two kinds of hearty rye breads and decided we'd have a tray of that for dinner!  So he made a fire in the basement fireplace, we cozied up on the couch and gorged on cheese, bread, and pears,

And drank wine - this one was a delicious Riesling which just happened to come in a bottle shaped like a cat! (who am I kidding - we bought it because of the bottle, but the wine was great too!)

Then today we went to the Taqueria Mixteca downtown and pigged out on mexican food - he tried tongue tacos for the first time, and I had a bite too (delicious!) I got a ceviche tostada because I've never had ceviche before (delicious) and we shared a bowl or posole (which i make about once a week) but this had pork in it - and it was, you guessed it, delicious!  We rolled ourselves out to the car and came home.  I meant to stop at the 2nd street market for a giant bag of popcorn, but totally forgot because of my excitement to get there!  oh well!  Other tidbits that made my birthday great: finding about 20 little ceramics and S&P's from Japan (my favorite - they don't look asian, they just have a "look") at the thrift store when I ran in to get a fireplace set for the basement on Thursday after work - it was like a birthday eve present, dancing while the fella played tunes on the electronic organ/keyboard, and finding a Florida avocado at Jungle Jim's - which I've seen, but not at stores around here!  I can't wait to try it.  Yeah, try to top all that!!!  :)

flying geese finish!

I actually wrapped this quilt up last weekend but I thought maybe I'd get a day with some sun to photograph it.  No such luck - it's January in Ohio!  And when the sun did pop out, I totally forgot about this!  duh.  Anyway, here it is!  I really like it!

I know it's impossible to tell in this picture, but I think it's about 32"x32" - something like that!  not big, but probably good for a crib or a car seat.  

Here's a closeup of the binding:

The binding was scrap fabric I bought in a little grab bag of stuff at an antique mall I think.  I never want to use the good stuff...but especially for a baby quilt.  I mean you know it's going to get puked on!  But really, it's still to let it just sit in the closet!  I should just put it to use!

I didn't do a lot of quilting - just straight lines on either side of the seams - I think the orange thread kind of mimics jeans, so it works with the denim, and also orange and blue just look great together!

The background is some fabric I bought online and thought I'd use it for a dress, but the scale of the print turned out to be bigger than I expected and I wasn't so sure it'd be a great dress!  that's what you get when you buy online - but it's not like it goes bad - it got a new life as a quilt back!

flying geese for a fat baby

My sister-in-law just had a new baby boy on Christmas Eve.  That's baby #7 for her and my brother.  Yeah, 7.  Oy vey!  whatever.  Anyway, he's a fat little boy, which is exactly how babies ought to be, and I like to call him Fat Bruce.  I'm making lil' Bruce a quilt.  I keep seeing cool denim quilts on Pinterest - using different shades of denim almost as different colors.  I have a bunch of old jeans that don't fit anymore, so I started cutting them up for a flying geese quilt.  I'm pairing the denim with some aqua Kona cotton, and I think I'm going to throw in one or two red or orange triangles for a spot of color.

I think I'll do the quilting in red and orange thread - probably along the long sides of the triangles simply because those are the only lines that I can guarantee will be straight!  Haha!  I originally planned to run a line of quilting up the middle of each triangle - from base to point, but who am I kidding?  those points are never going to line up!  Why make that even more obvious with quilting that highlights it?  nope.  I'm really loving it so far!  

So here's my new year's blog quandary:  I keep telling myself to blog more, because I like doing it.  However, I don't really feel like anyone is reading it.  Then I ask myself if it matters, and I guess if I didn't care if anyone read it, I'd just make a diary and not post it.  In a way this is almost an electronic diary for myself I guess - I use it to look back at dates when things happened or to compare one year to the next.  Still, I guess I'd like someone to enjoy it besides me.  So that made me ask myself why people wouldn't read it - and I can only answer that by thinking about why I read the blogs I do.  I think my blog has too many topics - I really only read about such varied topics if I personally know the writer and want to keep up with their life, or if they're miraculously into everything I'm into!  Otherwise, I like a blog based on pretty much one subject.  I also like blogs that inspire me with cool projects, or teach me how to do things I haven't done.   I'm not sure I'm really hitting any of those marks!  I'm wondering if I ought to divide up topics.  Will I write more if I have one blog for sewing/knitting/crafting, one for cooking, one for gardening, and one for what will undoubtedly become my new obsession in the spring - chickens?  I'm sure there are people who are already like "I don't care a fig about your walnuts or your chickens!"  but maybe they like reading about sewing.  Would I write less if I do this.  I just don't know.  Any thoughts?