Tanya (My Wife) says my new Quilt top is ugly!

 I am sure you all are looking at this picture and saying that is not ugly.  No this is not the top she called ugly.  This quilt when finished (its only a top right now) will be given to my wife's Grandmother she is a wonderful lady that has taken good care of her 8 children, 30+ Grand kids, and who could count the number of wonderful great grand children she has (Julia will be one of these). She is around 85 and still lives at home (with help now as she cant see well any more).

Tanya and I plan to make this quilt and one similar to it for our grandmothers this year they have done so much for us and they deserve something sweet in return.

 Now for what my wife calls hideous (now she is claiming she only laughed at it) Sorry for the bad lighting this time of day its hard to get good pictures with light though window.  You will remember a while back I got some material from a neighbor.  And that I dug though looking for plaids (ya ya Gingham)  Any way I pulled them all out of the box and took the summer fun type and made hot pads.  While I made a top out of the others.

 I cut a strip or 2 from each of the Gingham prints and then sorted them into piles and while shuffled them like cards to make a random selection of prints.  The color ranged from brown, to blue to a cool orange and a red.  In my defense I think they all went to gather great and when my wife agreed they worked together she was having a contraction so was not really doing any thing other then telling me to get lost.

 So once I got them sorted I sewed them together.  I wanted to make a wavy pattern (and from learning the hard way with the hot pads) I had to turn on angle each row as I sewed them together.  Its not as easy as it looks to sew a diamond together but by the last row i got pretty good at it.

 Snow ball one of our cats (can I say I hate this cat?) Decided to come visit me.  It likes to circle my legs and rub against them and being allergic to cats (yes I live in a house with 5 cats) it while gets on my nerves.  I had the kids toss it out a couple of times.

 But the darn thing kept coming back.  It loves me and I just cant figure out why.  I hate this cat.  I love most of our others.  Its nothing it does other then it likes me and it makes me itch more then any other cat.

I was able to get the cat to leave me alone long enough and I finished my quilt top.  I showed it too my wife and all she could do was laugh at me.

I cant decide which way I like the quilt going right to left or up and down on the waves.  Let me know which you like best?

Now I like this quilt and my wife hates it.  If I cant find a better home for it I will finish it and put it in the car so that we have a quilt while traveling.  The real reason I made this quilt was not for the quilt its self.  I want to make a quilt in my bright oranges (yes more things Tanya hates) but before messing it up this was my practice run to see if my crazy ways will work and I think it turned out great.

On a good for wife note I tonight after making my ugly top (as Tan calls it) I cut the sashings for my sisters quilt and got the first row sewed together.  The blocks are made from Good Fortune Jelly Roll which I won from January Finish Linky party at Such a Sew and Sew if you have not been by her site go visit I love it and please link up your finishes she has some great prizes offered each month.

Been Puzzled

 Been Puzzled is my newest finish.  I completed this quilt to donate to my son Jared's school (that is Jared on the quilt) he goes to a Autistic school he has Asperger's Syndrome this quilt is being donated to help earn some money for needed supplies at his school

 Jared was quite happy that he got the job of laying on the quilt for me.  He is such a great kid.

 Here is the quilt hanging over the fence which I got distracted in the middle of my photo shoot when I realized.

 That our tree's are starting to bloom.  This is a mixed tree that has apricots and nectarines.  I also have a couple peach trees and a apple tree and one more apricot tree.  So far this is the only one blooming but the peach tree's are close last year a late weird winter early spring killed almost all of the peaches so I am hopping to have more luck this year.

 Now back to my quilt here is one shot no kid so you can see the whole pattern.  I forgot to take a shot up close of the binding but its a stripped pattern with little dots in it quite cute.

 After taking pictures of the quilt I ventured into the front yard to see how my wife's tulips are doing and out of the hundreds that are out their the first 2 blooms are out.

 We have a few of our daffodils still around my wife planted 75 and we only have a handful left but this is the 3rd one I have seen this year.  Its only inches off the ground so I had to take a funky angle shot of it.

 While looking for new signs of life I found these cute purple flowers growing in the lawn not in the flower bed where they were they were suppose to reside.

 But I did find a dandelion my son's favorite flower which my wife cant stand.  So while she is pregnant and not in the mood to frolic in the lawn he better go out and enjoy it.

 My wife put up her first decoration since Christmas so she is alive.  Speaking of the wife Tanya is still pregnant but desires not to be.  My guess for the baby to be born was today and Tanya's guess was yesterday so we will not be winning the quilts. (not that we were in the running) I cant remember for sure but I think we are past all my other kids guesses also.  So they say no news is good news.  But for us its no news is sad as we are sitting around with no plans waiting for Julia to join us.

Oh ya forgot to show off the back so here it is.  I had measured and bought the correct length for the back and when doing the blocks on front suggested to wife that we had extra and could border the blocks on front with left over back material.  As you can see with my 2 purple stripes I um miss calculated.  Oops!

A Win, A winner, and A Complete all in ONE!

 First off I won this prize to the right.  The picture is misleading the kindle was not in the case (that is my son's kindle) but I won this kindle case from http://yourhandmadehome.blogspot.com/  I was lucky enough to win this fantastic kindle case.  The best part is Tanya and I have been talking about buying Rebecca a Kindle for her Birthday in April so she will not only get a Kindle but a wonderful case to fit it in.

 (Keep it quiet though she does not know, hope she does not read my blog today)

The blog hop has officially come to a end.  This time around my wife was so excited she did all the heavy lifting for me (writing down all the names cutting them up and tossing them in a bowl).  She did this last night so that all she had to do was pull them today.

 Here they all are in the bowl.

 Jared reached in and grabbed one.

 Hum cant read this with out squinting.  Oh Dots and Flowers is the winner.  I did not even realize this until my wife pointed it out but I am a winner too as that was my example in my instructions.  So sadly I do not get any thing except a kiss from my wife and she has been stingy with those lately so that's a good thing.

 So after going though the list twice my wife determined that Debra Lee and Janet (not counting me) were the only 2 to guess Dots and Flowers.  So she wrote down their names and tossed them into the bowl.

 Here they are in the bowl!

At this point I am sure the drama of 100 pictures are getting to some but its all part of the process.

YEA!!!!!! Debra Lee is our winner.  Her website is Easily Distracted Debra  Go visit her site and congratulate her.  I will be emailing her shortly.

Last but not least its BINGO time.  While in may it will be BINGO time.  But you need to have your card done early so do not delay.  This is a chance for prizes and fun please come join in.  All part of May For me so go check it out and join us.

Here is my back.  My bingo text was done with my walking foot on (was too lazy to take it off) so the machine kept fighting me and some of the letters are a tad wonky but that's good for BINGO!

Link a Finish Friday #9

The Goal for me this year is 52 Finishes in 52 weeks help keep me honest and show off your own finishes at the same time its a Link A Finish Friday!!

This week I either got 1 finish (as I counted it) Or 4 depending on how you count it I finished 4 Summer Fun hot pads.

Last week I kinda mixed it up and had LAFF #8 along with a blog hop which added some interest in the quilts linked as people had to pick the quilt they liked most. I am excited to come home from work Friday night close the comments on that post and do my drawing and giveaway.  But if you have not entered and your fast you can go do so while I am still at work.

This last week the Top clicked quilt was Runaway to Bali Tied with my quilt Burst of Color  But interestingly the most "Liked" was Zig Zag Zoomed!  Thank you to all those that linked up this last week.

Now its time to link up.  You can read the silly rules (which I never remember to do) Or you can just start linking your finished quilts.  Lets see what we all got done this week.

So for the rules.

1) Who likes rules. Toss them out.
2) Add a link to your finish blog or where ever you show off your finishes (Not limited to quilts but I like them the most).
3) Visit a few of the finishes and comment or encourage them on.

Not Required but fun to do

1) Follow my blog.
2) Follow the blog of all those that link.
3) Link back to my blog.
4) No finish, go quilt and stop reading the web.

Dancing Butterfly

 Hum coming up with a good name for this one is harder then I though because other then quilting and binding, I did not take much thought in making the quilt (bought the top) I don't seem to like it as much as I really should.  I am sure it will grow on me, but my daughter Rebecca has pestered me enough about it I had to finish it.

So Dancing Butterfly is the name for good or for bad.  They look to be dancing to me.

This quilt was finished with a flannel that my wife picked out a couple months back and some polka dotted binding material we bought around the same time.  It turned out cute and for the first bigger quilt done with Spray Basting I think it turned out great.  I spent half the night tonight quilting the autism quilt, which is finished except for the binding and washing.  I was also able to get the binding on my Bingo card and its finished except for washing it. I will post that Friday night, with the winners of my blog hop give away (that reminds me, you have until I get home from work to enter if you have not already done so).