Busy times

It's been a busy couple of weeks, thus the delays posting.

Last week Jennie, Karen, the hubby and I went downtown to the Museum of Science and Industry for the Harry Potter and Smarthome exhibits.

The Smarthome exhibit was really fabulous. It's the "greenest" home in Chicago, designed and built by architect Michelle Kaufmann. It's designed to fit a typical city lot size and runs on solar and wind power (we were lucky enough to witness the installation of the turbine). It has tanks underneath to collect rain water and reuse it for the garden and other suitable uses. It's made from energy efficient and recycled materials and we all decided we could totally live there. The only thing is was lacking was a suitable sewing studio space, but since it's modular, I'm guessing you could easily add one. If you go onto the museum's website, they have a video of the house being built.

Apparently there is a whole neighborhood development of these super green houses out in Colorado.

The tulip was in the container garden in the back of the house.
The wind turbine going up, and all the way installed. They used a van outside the gate with a winch to bring it upright.

This was a vertical garden installation in the courtyard of the Smarthome. Quilt anyone? Of course with 3 quilters there, we all ooo and ahhhd over the vertical garden.

Always a favorite at the MSI, the baby chicks hatching!

The Harry Potter exhibit was interesting. It's costumes and props from the movies. I was sorted by the actual sorting hat, and it's official, I'm a Griffindor! I'm sure it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the girl asked me which house I liked best prior to hovering the hat over my head. Jennie, Karen and I were amazed at the construction and detail of the costumes. Some of them were just exquisite.

The really funny part was that they had all British people working the exhibit. I asked one woman if they imported them all from the UK to travel with the exhibit, and she said that they were all living in Chicago currently. She told me "you'd be surprised how many people from the UK live in Chicago, there's a lot of us!"

They didn't allow photos in the exhibit, so the Flying Ford Anglia from the "Chamber of Secrets" movie that was in the lobby is the only thing I could take a picture of.

The Mold-a-Rama is one of my all time favorite childhood memories. (Although I really think it should be called the Mold-o-Rama). The "o" makes all the difference.

They had them at the zoo and you could get a molded piece of colored wax in the shape of your favorite animal. The train section at the museum had Mold-a-Rama machine and since Jennie's hubby is a huge train fan, and Jennie had never experienced the joy that is the Mold-a-Rama, we decided that the hubby needed a Mold-a-Rama train as a remembrance of our trip, even though he wasn't with us! (The machine says it's plastic, but I think it's really more wax-like).

The Mold-a-Rama in action:

1) The mold closes and the hot wax flows through the tubes into the mold

2)The mold opens and you see your wax masterpiece!

3) The shovel thingy pushes your Mold-a-Rama masterpiece into the pickup shoot.

4) This step is VERY IMPORTANT - you have to hold your Mold-a-Rama upside down while it cools. The directions are very firm on this point.

5)Your Mold-a-Rama is complete! (I didn't take a photo of the finished product, so this is the upside down picture rotated)

Last weekend we also participated in the Adopt-a-Husky fund raiser hike with Bug, Abbie and Robbie. The first two are Adopt-a-Husky alums, and Robbie likes an adventure, so we took him too. I walked Bug and Robbie 3 miles around the lake. It was a glorious spring day, in the low 60's, just perfect for the me and the huskies. There are horses allowed on the trails and Robbie had never seen one before, so it was pretty funny. His eyes got really big when he saw them. Abbie is old and has all the leg issues, so the hubby just walked her a little way then went back to the gathering area.

Abbie: Above photo: Bug and Robbie stacked on one another in the car to stick their noses out the window. It's really perfect because he's so much taller than she is, so they fit perfectly that way.
The 3 mile walk around the pond. Very lovely.

The pile-o-puppies for adoption at Adopt-a-Husky. Aren't they the cutest things? The one in the left photo was especially funny because that's totally how Bug likes to sleep. Apparently contorted sleeping positions is a totally Husky thing to do.

Things I’ve been up to lately

I have been a quilting, bag making, canning, and dog visiting fool lately!

Fall is my favorite time of year. The cool weather, the amazing leaf colors, pumpkins, apple cider doughnuts, squash soup, Halloween and everything else autumn brings makes me happy. It all invigorates me! I’ve been referred to as Autumn Girl at work.

This is fall quilt that I’ve been working on. "insert beautiful, fantastically photographed photo here." Uuummmmm... it appears that I somehow deleted said beautiful photo prior to downloading it. Which is a shame because I totally wanted to share it with you because I completely LOVE this quilt!

It’s made from the line Maple Hill Road from Maywood ( left) and is absolutely stunning and ever so autumnal! I love that word. I had a comforter for my bed a long time ago that was tan with scrolls and leaves in fall colors. My boyfriend at the time said “it’s very autumnal” when I proudly showed him my new purchase. That phrase has stuck with me ever since. It’s probably my favorite fall related phrase. I had considered it as a name for the quilt, but I think it will be called “Autumn in Provence” instead. The pattern is the “French Countryside” quilt(see right side) from the “Purely Provence” book by Renee Nanneman of Need’l Love fame. I really love her designs. She creates many different kinds of projects with various materials in her books. She does pillows, wool 3d thingies, rugs and various and sundry other decorative items along with quilts.

I used the acorn and leaves print on the brown background for the large zig-zag part of the quilt. Then the cream tone on tone toile (3rd down on the left of the swatches) for the light half squares. I used all of the plaids, pumpkins, leaves and sunflowers for the blocks.

It’s not done yet because I wanted to get it out to Tammy Tadd’s to use as a sample for the fabric line before fall was over. I was going to put a small sage green inner border and larger brown acorn/leaves border on it then bind it in the green plaid on the bias (diagonal), but now I’m not so sure. Jennie thinks I should leave it as is. I am the queen of borders though, and I prefer at least 3, so I’m not sure I can just leave it border-less.

I can finally show everyone the grocery bag that I made for my friend Anne, who lives in England, since she's finally received it. I chose the Catzilla -Garden Cats line of fabric in honor of Anne's two cats, Willow and Scooby, who periodically hang out in her English garden. I bought this fabric years ago with Anne in mind, so I was thrilled when I decided on a grocery bag for her. Isn't it cute?

I’ve also designed a small, easy to make, take along book bag that I’ll post the pattern for it so that everyone can try it out for themselves. It is so easy it’s ridiculous! It would make a great little gift for Christmas. Maybe filled with some home made sweets or foods that have been preserved! But then, things that have been preserved in jars really should have matching fabric hats, don’t you think? Perhaps matching / coordinating hats!
I took the bag pattern over to PittyPat's last week for her to try out, and she thoroughly enjoyed making it. I'll have to get a photo of the one she made for you all to see. It's super cute. I brought her some Michael Miller retro 50's glam girls fabric to test it with. We decided to make it slightly larger than the one in the photo, same concept though.

Speaking of darling fabric jar hats, below is the gazpacho that I made entirely out of my garden produce! I also made the croutons (in the coordinating baggies) to go with it. The two jars were not canned/sealed, I just thought they made a nice presentation since I was giving them to a couple of my friends to enjoy. As if you all didn't know this already, here is the evidence that I’ve totally lost my mind. The hubby has spent the last three weekends visiting various stray Husky organizations. While I’ve told him repeatedly that I think we are good with the critters that we have, he wants another Husky. I agreed to go with him last Sunday only because the rain was so torrential that Amy and I decided against the Renegade Craft Fair, which disappointed us both. I figured that he’s going to get a dog anyway, so it would be best that I at least go and give some input.

We met Penelope, Cloudy and Brick. Penelope was a young, small, all white dog with big brown eyes. She was sooo cute and spunky! Cloudy, who is also all white, is bi-eyed, one blue, one brown. He was sweet, sweet, sweet! He lumbered in and flopped at our feet, looking for belly rubs. It says he's exuberant on the website, but he was really mellow when we met him. He's the only one that we met on the website. We also met Brick, who is a blue eyed, red Husky. He was really nice too. The funny thing is that both Cloudy and Penelope were submissive to Robbie! No creature of any kind is ever submissive to Robbie! He’s the Zeta dog, if that’s possible. We actually had decided to adopt Penelope, but by the time the hubby called, she had already been adopted. She was adopted out the day after we met her!

We were supposed to meet a mostly blind Husky last weekend, but his foster family fell in love with him and decided to keep him. I’m a sucker for just this kind of case! Apparently, so is my cousin Ashley. It must be genetic. The hubby jokes that I would take in a blind, deaf, legless dog if the opportunity arose. I told him that of course I would, I mean the poor dog couldn't see or hear and would only be able to roll around for goodness sake! If I didn't take him, who would? (Ashley would.

After Adopt A Husky we went over to Save a Pet, a no-kill shelter where we had adopted Methos from in 2002, to look at Snowbell. I feel badly for her. She has a "mouthing problem" where when she is riled. She goes crazy, grabbing at clothes until she rips them. The woman who brought her out to us was awful. She really ticked me off big time. I seriously think she riled poor Snowbell more than she would have been if the wretched lady had not been there. We also overheard her telling the front desk people that Snowbell doesn't like her so she doesn't think she should be the one showing her. I agree with Snowbell's opinion of the lady. I told the hubby that if he wants Snowbell (and I would like to get her out of there) that he has to invest ,both monetarily and time, into reforming her behavior. I also informed him that it will probably cost a couple thousand dollars and at least an hour a day for a couple of years to get her behavior totally in line. My big problem with adopting her is that I don't know that Bug will like her. And w/her craziness, I have to worry about the other 3 dogs as well as DiscoJen’s and Donna’s children when they come to visit. I also don’t really believe that the hubby has it in him to do the kind of follow through that this dog will require, and I simply don’t have the time for it right now.

Then there's Woody, who is a fluffy brown dog with the sweetest eyes. He's 10 years old, and we don't really want him to die in there. I mean, who's going to adopt a 10 year old dog? No one wants the old ones.

What really made me cry (I ALWAYS bawl like a baby at these places) was Nikita. We almost adopted her when we got Methos, back in 2002. She's very fearful of men, but I felt, especially at that time, that we could work with her. The hubby didn't think she would was a good choice at the time though. The poor thing is still there! It totally breaks my heart. I would consider Nanouk too, but he's been a long time companion to Nikita, and I would hate to leave her with no companionship.

Well, I think that makes me mostly caught up. I have my quilt guild weekend retreat this weekend, and I’m the one in charge of it, so there’s much to do this week! I’ll try to post about the Madison quilt show next week. I'll leave you with this photo of my multi-colored peppers, just because I think they are so pretty! I made Italian stuffed peppers out of them. The purple pepper turns back to green when you cook it!