But the picture came out kinda spiffy. It probably seems a little odd without the quilt, but I promise it’s neat-o!

Isn’t the ‘?’ beautiful?

And what about this one?

It may seem like all I do is drive around the city taking random pictures with a quilt stuck in it eh? Yeah, well, that’s kinda what I’ve actually been doing. Yuppers, I’m the Crazy Lady.

Perhaps tomorrow we’ll have some pictures with the quilts not grayed out. Sound good?

I finished it up last night and we stopped this morning to take some pictures.

My helpful assistant:

I love his little front toofies.

Oh, right, the quilt.

I definitely got some odd looks this morning. There were tons of people at the beach. No wind+no rain+some sun+not too cold=beach. I also had a couple of super nice ladies come up and oogle at the quilt and chat.

I got a little giggle out of the fact that the three FQ bundles I had to make the quilt were the exact colors of one of the versions in the book. I knew what I was going to do with the Castle Peeps FQs when I snatched them up at Sample Spree in Minneapolis. It just took me until now to actually make the quilt. I mixed in some random solids from my shelves. I honestly couldn’t tell you what color or manufacturer they are, but they all worked really well!

So, yeah, the quilt is actually upside down here. This has got to be my favorite tree stump ever. You’ve seen it before by either a) living near me and frequenting the same beach/park or b) here.

I wanted to get a better shot of the whole quilt but the seagulls did not want to give up their perch and unfortunately the Quilt-Stand-With-Feet that I had along with me is three and just a smidge too short. But he was more than happy to snuggle up:

Here you can see the backing. I love that print (ok, I love them all).

So how many of you are now cringing at all the dirty things I threw the quilt over? You mean city seawalls and dead trees aren’t pristine and clean?

I also saw this this morning… which perhaps is one of those things that was cooler in person than it is in a picture, but I just love the texture of the sand underneath the water (towards the bottom of the pic) and the way the light on the tide ripples makes the neatest blobby colors (at the top).

I’m planning on taking a good chunk of time to make quilts for myself this summer inbetween playing at the beach and in the splash/wading pools. We’ll see if that actually happens.

Back to reality now… Market is t-minus how many days?? (please don’t tell me)

2.  Maeve says, “Mommy looks like a Princess and Daddy looks like the man on Mary Poppins.”

3.  The lower wall is done and there is 13 glorious feet of flat in the back yard!  It just took a huge wall and 200 tons of dirt, but hey, it’s flat!  Second wall should be done in 1-1.5 weeks.

4.  Carolina Patchworks readers say, “Isn’t this supposed to be a quilt blog?  Where are the quilts?”  Well, I am sewing.  A lot.  I’ve gotten two quilt tops done in the past couple days but I’m holding off finishing and listing them since they are the proof-of-concept quilts for patterns 9 and 10.  I am working on something else that should be in the shop this weekend.  And I know what I’m doing next.  And there is a bunch of business stuff that I’m doing too.  Yeesh, I need more hours in my day.

5.  The landscapers are finishing up at another job today so all is quiet on the hill.  Including the bulldozer-with-wheels-like-Wall-E.  Liam is in little boy heaven.  We secretly think the owner of the landscaping company became a landscaper just so he could drive this.

And even the little-bulldozer-with-wheels-like-Wall-E joined in.

6.  Yesterday I had coffee (Ok, she had coffee, I had hot chocolate.  See #1.) with a wonderful fun, smart and spunky lady.  It was so nice to have an adult conversation with NO children.  Note to self: do that more often.  And now the gears are churning in my head as to what to do with this hobby-that-really-isn’t-a-hobby-anymore.  I need to go have a drink with the answer fairy because I just can’t decide what to do or what direction to go or to just stay as-is.  Sigh.

7.  I should get back to work and stop typing random things on my blog.

8.  But really, what’s the fun in that?  Don’t y’all want to know all the random things going through my head?

9.  Ok, now for reals, I’m going back to work.  Adios!  Now to figure out what categories to put this in…

….

10.  Ok, I published this and then had to come back and add one.  Why, when you go to a class at the gym, do people insist on setting up 2 inches from you?  Really, it’s a huge room and this is a class when you’re jumping and stepping everywhere.  Move away from me please.  Ok, now off to work.

– Post From My iPhone

We started out with some yummy coffeecake muffins…

… to eat while we watched the parade and the kids danced …

(and yes, she’s wearing a dress again!  I tricked her and told her all her pants were packed for the special trip.  Mean mommy.)

… and saw Buzz.  Maeve got all excited when she saw Dora.  She has no clue who Dora is but has seen the face in the stores.  I fear Kindergarten and all the characters it will bring home …

Maeve did a great job setting the table.  Liam did a great job unsetting it.

Liam says, “Feed me now!”

Maeve says, “Yum!”

I made Farrotto with all the normal Thanksgiving flavors.

Sean insisted on cooking some dead thing to feed to himself and the kids.  Hrmm.

The apple cider appears to have not killed us.

And the night concluded with homemade cinnamon chocolate chip ice cream.  Yum.

Hope everyone had a fantabulous day!