Dia De Awesomeness

It's Day of the Dead!

I was so crazy-busy this year

 I didn't put up any Halloween decorations inside,

but I did do my little Dia de los Muertos alter.

Close-up!

It's a wonderful way to remember my

abuelas and abuelos,

my dear prima,

and my gatos and perros.

Trickery, Trickery, Trickery!

I picked up some dice at Target

to use for math games when I'm a teacher.

Cool, huh?

But then I looked inside the container,

and...

You sit on a throne

cardboard tube of lies!

Throwback... Saturday?

My sister recently unearthed some photos from her garage:

Nope, that's not some gauzy Instagram filter;

it's an honest-to-goodness photo from 1972.

I'm the one standing in the back, and the tiny red-haired lady?

My great-grandma O.B.,

born Ernestine Stockstill in 1898.

Here she is as a pretty young girl:

Family lore is that her father was a riverboat gambler,

and whether or not that is true, 

she certainly had both the affinity for cards

and the salty language to make it believable.

I dunno... I love how easy cellphones and digital cameras

have made taking a photo,

but I worry we'll lose out on the delight of finding an old photo.

Speedy-Quick Quilt

A quickie post for a quickie quilt!

I had this amaaaazing mermaid fabric.

But those mermaids are about nine to ten inches high! 

To show 'em off, I would need huuuuuge blocks.

So instead, I decided to go old school...

...and use a big ole piece of the fabric, uncut.

Here's what I did!

I used:

about 1 1/4 yards center fabric

about 1 1/4 yards of the framing border fabric

about 3/4 yards binding fabric

six different strips of 3 1/2" wide fabric

batting

backing fabric

*****

First, I cut the mermaid fabric about 40"- 41" wide by 56" - 57" long.

(I made sure not to cut off any mermaid heads.)

Then for the framing border, I cut 12 strips of fabric,

3 1/2" wide across the width, 

and for the binding I cut 7 strips,

also 3 1/2" wide.

(I like a nice wide binding.)

Now, depending on the width of the fabric, you might only need

11 of the framing border strips; 

sometimes fabric ends up 44" wide;

sometimes 40" wide.

But 12 strips will ensure you have enough.

 Sew those border strips together into one looong strip.

Do the same with the binding strips.

Now, take your six different fancy border fabrics

and cut them each into RANDOM sixths.

Don't make them all the same length!

I added a little bit of the binding fabric, 

but it turned out I didn't need it.

Sew those into one looooong strip, too.

(I did them in the same order, but you do you.)

 Then I just sewed on one framing border,

lay out the fancy border and sewed it on,

then added the outside framing border.

I quilted it all over,

bound it with a 1/2" wide finished binding, and...

Boom!  Done!

I doubt it took me more than ten hours from start to finish.

It nicely fits the top of my full futon,

and it really brightens up my spare room!

Questions?

Ask me in the comments!

Came Up the Stairs To This...

NONE SHALL PASS!!!

Unless you have tuna.

Then, sure.  Why not.