Happy Halloween!

ARGH MATEY!!  Hand over yer candy or I'll make you walk the plank!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, Y'ALL!!

A Walk In The Park

Hubby took advantage of a beautiful autumn day, packed us into the car and delivered us to Cameron Park Zoo.  Nice call, Hon!! 

Hubby and the Co-Defendants in the Asian Garden...

Co-Def #2 and the only thing on planet Earth meaner than her, a Komodo dragon...

I swear this little guy knew we all had cameras..love, love, love meerkats!

Co-Defs monkeying around in the Asian Garden...a moment of sibling tranquility

Ten seconds before I snapped this, I groused, 'Fake it and act like you like one another!'...they look like they're waiting for a root canal.

The MPMOE and his SASW...that's the Most Patient Man on Earth and his Sweet (and Sour) Wife.

We begged the zookeepers to find a suitable cage in which to house the Co-Defs, but the animals were too afraid.  Oh, well...you can't win 'em all!

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

How did women back in the day do it...quilting away, by hand no less, hunched over for hours on end?  Did they ever experience carpal tunnel syndrome?  Is there such a thing as quilter's elbow? 

I've started the handquilting on the sunflower quilt.  Sixty minutes later, I don't even have three complete circles finished and my hands feel like lead.  This crap's for the birds!  Twenty blocks?  Plus sashing?  Oh, damn!

Here's what I've got...

There's not much to see.  I purposely chose not to draw the quilting lines.  Don't ask me why, it just looks more authentic to me.  I'll wind up making about seven concentric circles, then filling in the remainder of the tan background with 'arcs'.

However, I'm beginning to think this is a bit too ambitious and may just wind up doing the concentric circles.  Maybe I'll stop at  five circles...maybe three.

Anybody have an opinion on this?  I'd like to hear it if you do...

Quilting Mary Ellen's Sunflowers

Remember this one?  I blogged about it way back and it has sat, untouched, ever since.  Never mind the fact it's sat since the days of my great grandmother, possibly my great great grandmother, unquilted, waiting for some crazy broad antique quilt lover crazy broad to give it the finish it deserves.

Anyway, I pulled it out again a couple of days ago and began to seriously consider my quilting options.  I'm not joking when I say it made me nauseous and gave me a pounding headache just thinking about it.  What if I get it quilted and it just makes me say 'GAG!'...what then?  Will I have utterly ruined it?  Still, it seems grossly unfair to the maker to leave it as it is, so this weekend I'm putting it on the frame, taking a deep cleansing breath and going for it.  I may also pour a glass of red and pop a Xanax...hey, whatever works! 

I'm going for fairly tight echo quilting around the circular sunflower shape (see photo below).  I'll do two, maybe three straight rows of quilting in each of the sashing strips and outline quilting in each of the nine patches.  I'm nixing doing anything inside the circles because the flowers themselves are dimensional.

I've never quilted an antique top, but I am determined to get this done.  It may take me 'til the kids leave home or I drop dead of old age, but I will quilt it.  Wish me luck!

Gee Double Oh Dee, Good

Let me start by saying, I am not a baker.  In fact, I'm not much of a cook, although my kids say I make the best macaroni and cheese EVER (thank you, Kraft Foods for your neon orange simulated cheese powder).  I do, however, love to watch cooking and travel shows and at least act like I know what the heck those people are doing.

Yesterday, I caught some show on Travel Channel that was everything bacon.  Now, some folks don't like pigs.  Sure, they may be slovenly little suckers, but they taste divine.  PIG.  IS.  GOOD.  One restaurant, Slater's 50/50 in Anaheim, California, featured all sorts of bacony goodness: burgers, cocktails and...be still my heart...a bacon brownie.  Spare me the retching and gagging routine, please.  To channel my Mom: Have you tried them yet?  Well, then, how can you know whether you like 'em or not? 

They looked phenomenal and I thought 'Self, even YOU can make those'.  So, I did.

Crumble up the cooked piggy into the batter and bake.

At this point, my camera literally died (not even new batteries could help) so I don't have a picture of the pan.  But let me just say...I love chocolate.  I love bacon.  And damn if these brownies don't ROCK!!