Silver Beaver Award

Tonight was a big night for my favorite boy scout, my husband, Doug. At the Georgia-Carolina Council Banquet, he received the Silver Beaver Award for service. His friend and fellow scouter, John Garcia, presented him with the award.


Established in 1931, the Silver Beaver Award is presented for distinguished service to young people within a BSA local council. As with the Silver Antelope, a recipient must be a registered adult member of the BSA. Silver Beaver Awards are presented on the basis of the number of units in a council.

Anyway, I'm proud of him for his achievements in scouting...of course this is a good day and I'm not complaining about all the time, evenings and weekends, not to mention weeks in the summer when he is gone off on some scouting adventure or another....I am one among many scouting widows...lol...okay so at least I'm laughing today, it is not always this way rest assured!!!!

His Silver Beaver came in a nice velvet box with a scouting insignignia pin, knot to be added to his uniform as well as the silver beaver himself on ribbon...looks a lot like the awards given to the olympic medal winners but a lot cooler!!!

Updates

Questions have been raised about how long Wilbur & Charlotte were in time out...it wasn't long...long enough for me to blog and then I let them back out. They were very quiet and patiently waited, probably because I was still in the room with them.

Here is the finished purse for Jolene!! The handle is made from ribbon and watercolor threads that were used in the purse and then braided.

the back
















the front
















and a closeup of the front

Crazy Quilting

Wonderful news!! I finally finished the MaryLou Wiedman blocks I have been working on!! Do you think I took pictures of the last ones???

Of course not...what was I thinking?!?!? I was behind on them so in the hurry I neglected to take pics of them....oh well things could be worse.

BettyAnn gave me a piece of the most wonderful sequined ribbon stuff...thought I was in heaven...isn't it wonderful?!?!?










On the other hand, it has finally freed me up to work on some of the other projects I have been working on (or not working lately). One of these projects is the amulet bag for Jolene.




Actually I've found I was further along in the embroidery process than I had thought so wanting to leave enough room for buttons and beading, I have gotten this far with the embroidery stitches alone:

Thou Shalt Not

Today the puppies got a lesson in 'Thou Shalt Not'..


















..as in fight over a toy. The two of them decided that they both wanted the same chew toy at the same time. When Wilbur wouldn't let Charlotte alone with it, Charlotte decided to argue her point and they were both being ugly about it which left mom with no alternative but...

...to punish the little monsters..


..this is punishment and they were confined to their crates until I was satisfied that they had gotten the point..


...afterwhich, wilbur got his own toy and they went about playing and being the good little puppies I know and love..
















..how on earth could I stay mad at faces like that?!?!?

Has It Really Been A Week?!?!

I cannot believe it has been a whole week since I've last blogged! Well I've had requests for an update on the Spunkster so I'm letting everyone know that he is recupperating just fine with a few hitches.

Hitch #1: We now have a seperate litterbox downstairs (in my sewing room...argh!!). Spunky seems to have developed an aversion to using the old litterbox (possibly remembering the pain from his stoppage) and using the floor and any room available....YUCK!!

Hitch #2: He hates and I do mean HATES the dry special diet cat food...won't touch it...nope not at all. Soooooo, he is now eating special diet canned cat food and LOVING IT!!!

Hitch #3: He is taking liquid antibiotic because NO ONE (not even the vet) can get a pill down his throat.So, twice a day I get to wrestle the little bugger and squirt a dropper full of kitty amoxocillin down his throat...what fun...NOT!!

Personally I think the psychotic animal is just a brat and working us (namely me) over to get his own way....that's my position and I'm sticking to it.

Other than that he's doing fine and running his kingdom as usual...he's even back to beating Charlotte on the head so you know he's feeling better.

Okay, the pictures here may seem as if the Spunky cat is crowded...believe me, he prefers crowded to the alternative of the puppies eating his food. Which believe me, they will given any and every opportunity made available. This way there is too much stuff in their way to get at his food and he gets to eat in peace....well as much peace as there can be with 2 pitbulls in the house.

Poor Spunky

Warm weather is here in the south along with the pollen and longer days however, all is not right in everyones world....namely Spunky's world.

The poor little guy had a build up of 'sludge' in his bladder and got completely stopped up. On Monday off to Evans Veterinary Hospital to see Dr. Roseberry we went.

Spunky does not like doctors or car rides or people or much of anything to be completely honest. He is the exact opposite of the puppies who want to love on everyone...Spunky would just assoon bite you.

The highlight of his stay was that he did not have to deal with the dogs. He did however have to be knocked out and catheterized and stuck with the needle to give him fluids (hence the shaved neck) and wear the goofy hat (wish i had a picture of that). By Tuesday he was growling and by Wednesday he was full blown hissing at everyone at the hospital.

Fortunately he decided to sit in the floorboard for the truck ride home. He was finally 'chatting' with me by the time we were almost home.

His walking abilities were a little wobbly but I guess that is to be expected since he's been laying on his butt for the last few days feeling completely 'puny'.

He came home demanding to be fed, and not real pleased with the diet the vet sent home with him...so i mixed a tiny bit of his old food with it and put a cat treat on the top...which seemed to work.

He promptly found the love seat in the sewing room and has been parked on it ever since.

Oh and he made sure he gave the expected hissing greeting to the puppies so as far as they are concerned, all is well in the world and home is now back to normal since everyone is where they belong.....

If Spunky could see himself from behind he would be oh so embarrassed!!

Almost Springtime in the South

Monday and Tuesday of this week were hot...like 80+ outside....I love the heat and it made me want to see flowers so.....

off to the local Wallyworld (Wal*Mart) I went and bought some pretty flowers which I planted in 2 of my large tubs and placed on either side of the front door.





























Wilbur was not sure he liked Mom being outside while he was stuck inside






but at least this way he won't be eating the flowers or yanking them out of the pots and playing with them like he is prone to do....




Charlotte and Wilbur conspiring together on the back deck....

Trip to Charleston

The first weekend in March, eight of us from the quilt guild headed to Edisto Island and the Charleston Quilt Show.






Margaret had a couple of quilts in there as well as the birthday quilt we made for Rachel W's ** birthday this past year.

Of course a trip to Edisto MUST be proceeded, followed and interspersed with trips to PPQ (People, Places & Quilts) both in Summerville and Charleston and at the quilt show too!!

Across the street from the Summerville PPQ is a shop which sells donated items that are new and the proceeds go to the local child advocacy program. We came across some sale yarns there.














I was very good and didn't spend lots of money on fabric *grin*.














My big purchase was the darling angel made from an old quilt...ain't she a sweetie?


















I also was compelled to buy the diva pattern because it came with a diva pin...i won't even try to explain how my mind works...lol..these are some of the trims, angelina fibers and my unfinished fabric flower pin.


I just love the street with the 'Charleston Houses' on it and just had to have this picture of them...they look like sherbet and are simply gorgeous in person of course, they don't have the spectacular view that they may have had at one time as there are homes across the street from them.

Margaret gave me a postcard of Mt. St. Helen's which erupted for the first time on my 21st birthday....how many of you know when that was?!?!



















Another of our adventures was antiquing while we were in Charleston; although we didn't find any priceless treasures we did however stop at the local Goodwill Store and did some treasure seeking there...

















I found buttons, an old pattern which i will use as ephemera in my mixed media and beeswax projects, some lace, rickrack and flower trims and a special little rose basket to boot. Margaret came out with a butt ton of wool to felt.

One of my quilt show finds was this pack of pastel threads for crazy quilting.

Recent Adventures

Goodness, I have been very lax in my blogging!! I haven't even been taking pictures either and am still trying to decide what we should do about the broken camera thing. Doug wants compact, I want zoom. Fortunately nowadays you can get both (more or less) pretty reasonably.

I've been to Fiber on a Whim for Patti Medaris Culea's Stargazer Tome class for the last two months. Haven't gotten a whole lot done on my tome but have lots of inspiring ideas in my mind...lol..there are lots of things in my mind i tell ya...lots!! So far I have gotten the back and front covers cut out and at least one side fused.
















I've started on the doll faces and gotten their basic dress ironed down. Faces are being a challenge but they have been fun to experiment on.











The fusible webbing was really cool and I've experimented with both the white and the black Misty-fuse, mixing them with the bits and pieces of threads and fibers and topping it off with the angelina fibers...
















have I told you how much I love the angelina fibers?!?!? Rachael, BettyAnn and I bought different colors to swap with each other since a little bit goes a loooong way.

I've also finished the needle lace for the front of the lame dress...and yes I fused the back of the lame to keep it from raveling...The needle lace was not as easy as I had hoped and I didn't like how my first try on the super solvy turned out so I bought Superior 4x water soluble stabilizer (didn't have the super solvy where I went). The experience was a little challenging especially since I didn't hoop the Superior and it needed it...however tenacity won out and I just threaded it to death...it's large....and thick...I like it though even though it is far different than the pattern shows.















I also had to deal with the metallic thread challenge and finally put the thread in the bobbin and the poly in the top and stitched it upside down...another reason it was so thick...I didn't want this one to pull apart!!! The noticible difference I found in the two different products (other than the Superior would have done better in a hoop) was that the Solvy was very sticky and gooey when you ran it under the water...the Superior just disappeared with no sticky or gooey at all. I kinda liked that better...it was gone virtually immediately where the Solvy took a little coaxing. The ability to use the Solvy without a hoop made it much more convenient however. I'll use both products in the future.

Our adventures have also included trips to Nicolas Kniel's Ribbon Store where he has the most deliciousest of ribbons













there. He also teaches classes but I bought his book instead.....










can't take anymore out of town classes for now...





We also went to DiBona Studios which is closing to allow more time for teaching and shows. We were shown some how-tos and given some freebies in addition to the things we bought...I got some vellum and picture sheets along with some paper clay and scrap book doodahs...am also going to try my hand at the crystals which was demoed for us and is way cool.

Your Captain Jack Sparrow
You're not always clear when you say something, but

you are trustworthy.


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