Too Many Projects

First off, the trailer....final varnish coats have been put on hold the past few days due to weather. It's tough to varnish when it's rainy or windy. We're hoping to finish up the varnish this weekend and move on to the floor construction.

Meanwhile, another bus project is the curtains. Here's what I'm doing to the curtains. You can see the old, loose weave curtains on the right. I'm using those as a base and covering the inside bus portion with this cute Happy Camper fabric from Clothworks. Look, it has a VW bus AND a teardrop trailer! How cute is that. My neighbor says I need to make yet another quilt for the bus with this fabric.....hhhmmmmm.

Also in the works is Bonnie Hunter's latest mystery, Christmas Lights. This is a 3-part mystery being published in Quiltmaker magazine. Most of the QB's are joining in on this mystery. Here is the first part, all complete. I had the paisley in my stash so that will be my border. I then pulled a brown from it to use instead of Bonnie's suggested black print.

See the brown in this closeup. I'm sticking with Bonnie's scrappiness, but not using strictly all Christmas fabrics. At least that's the plan right now. Naturally that is subject to change if I decide the quilt is calling to me to use more Christmas fabrics. They do that you know, call to you as you're working on them, or when you've put them aside for awhile. Only a quilter can hear the call of fabrics though. Ain't that right Quilters?

Also in the ongoing projects pile are these polka dot 9-patches. Crazy Mom Quilts has a One a Day quilt-along. I joined figuring it would give me the motivation to move these little guys along. Yes, they are little -- they will finish at 3".

I'm using setting blocks instead of sashing. As you can see, even the setting blocks are polka dot! Unfortunately this project is stalled until I get more of my polka dot fabric cut. I have quite a stack still waiting to be cut for this other polka dot project that's been lingering for quite awhile.

And then there are the couple Christmas gifts I thought I would get an early start on. But, I can't show them here. There is also the request from a fellow Dalmatian owner to make her some more doggie panties, a.k.a. Bitches Britches. Years ago, when we had a female show dog I made panties for her to wear when she was in season. They became quite a hit among the Dalmatain crowd and I made countless pairs to sell to help support rescue.

So many projects, so little time.....Have a great weekend, and for those of you in the hot parts of the country, stay cool.

Didja' Know...

....that when you own a Dalmatian, you CAN NOT get away from those little white hairs! They end up EVERYWHERE. And I do mean EVERYWHERE.

Case in point, we have started an interesting home build it project. We are building a miniature Teardrop Cargo Trailer. I know, what do you mean a "miniature" Teardrop. A Teardrop Trailer is already tiny! Well, we have taken the basic Teardrop trailer and shrunk it. A typical Teardrop is built on a frame roughly 5'x8' or 5'x10'. We have shrunk ours down to fit on a 3.4'x4' trailer frame.
See, isn't it gonna be cute? If all goes as planned, it will have pretty birch sides with a bright yellow aluminum skin for the top. For several years we have talked about wanting a small trailer that we could pull with the bus. Since the bus simply doesn't have much space for storage and we tend to bring a LOT OF STUFF when we camp, a small trailer just makes sense. But, we wanted a trailer that had some character and class, hence a Teardrop trailer.

Now, back to those little white hairs......As you can see, we have been working on this project in the garage. Arlo is not helping with this project. He doesn't get to come out to the garage when the door is open. Here The Bearded One is applying coat number 3 of the varnish on one of the sides. What the picture doesn't show are all the little white Dalmatian hairs that I keep picking out of the sticky varnish. You just can't get away from them, ever. I guess if this trailer is ever stolen, I can put "lots of little white Dalmatian hairs embedded in the varnish on the sides" as part of the description.

And here are "The Boys" relaxing. I think one's done too much varnishing and the other has been busy barking at all the kids outside walking on "his" sidewalk.

A New Appreciation

....for a color that I have never been fond of. It's rather well known among my quilting friends that I have a strong dislike of the color orange. It's true, I've been rather vocal about it. Orange just isn't a color that appeals to me. I've taken a lot of grief about this from some people -- you know who you are. So, it was with much surprise that I recently found myself admiring some beautiful orange batiks. I put it down to going to a quilt show immediately after spending a weekend camping. I must not have been in my normal frame of mind.

So, here's the result of what those batiks (plus a requisite trip to the LQS for even more) turned into. I have to say, I actually like it. As difficult as it was for me to work in a color I'm not fond of, I am really, really pleased with the outcome. I hope the recipient of this bag likes it as much as I do.

Not only did I make this in orange, but you will note that there is also a good bit of pink in several of the fabrics, including the inside. That pocket fabric is pink with tiny orange polka dots. I still cannot believe that I a) made something with all orange fabrics b) even added pink with the orange -- holy batshit, what was I thinking?!?!? c) like how it turned out. It MUST be the Sudafed I've been taking for this congestion in my sinus/ears....
Last week more friends from California were in town for the day on another cruise. We basically did a repeat of Steve & Ray's day minus the 10:00 a.m. cocktails. The flowers in the market are all iris, peonies, poppies and sweet peas. Check out the really dark plum colored sweet peas in these bouquets. I've never seen sweet peas that color before. Aren't they just gorgeous?