cook top update

Remember my Jenn Air electric cook top that flamed out on me 2.5 weeks ago? Today I got a phone call from Sears. They're going to give me store credit towards the cooktop of my choice for the full amount that I paid for it almost 2 years ago. $649.99. Charlie wants to upgrade anyway & has offered to pay the difference. Sears says that that model was discontinued. (I wonder if it was due to flammability? Yes, I do believe that I'll shop at Sears again.

3 cat night

I was feeling nauseated last night. It didn't help, but I had 3 nurses. They even followed me into the bathroom & Al & Jesus watched while I groaned & Petey rubbed against my legs. Charlie snuck in this morning & took a picture. Clockwise from under my arm-Petey, Jesus & Al.

I want to grow up & be a newspaper photographer like my cousin, Ginger

Only, I'm already grown up & I could never be that good, but I did get a photo in the local newspaper. It's just a small town weekly & I didn't get paid, but I'm still proud of it. I took the picture on Monday.
Headline:
Near Disaster




















Farwell-It appears as though there was a terrible collision. Becky Wall & Charlie Andrews had a mishap when their first load of pumpkins hit a deer. Actually it is an archery target. The wagon spilled it's contents over the yard. Please drive carefully this season. Photo by Becky Wall


This is what it looked like on Tuesday afternoon after we got about an inch of very wet snow. The snow has melted already:

quilts in progress

I'm almost finished my fall challenge quilt for the quilt guild & I'm about 1/2 way through my purple challenge for the fiber pirates, but today, Charlie requested a spider in a web. I don't usually do Halloween decorations, but I thought that a cobweb would be fun & we both needed something to cheer us up after learning that a good friend was killed in an automobile accident over the weekend, so...












Those white things hanging out of his mouth that look like 2 ciggarettes were supposed to be fangs.

A scare in the kitchen

My less than 2 year old Jenn Air electric cooktop blew up tonight. A couple of days ago, I noticed that the light that tells you that a burner is on was lit with both burners & the grill off. I didn't think too much about it. Tonight, the back burner wouldn't get hot, so I turned it off, pulled the burner & plugged it back in. I tried to turn it on again & KERPOW- loud bang & green flames came out around the control knobs!!! Not remembering what to do for an electrical fire (except not water), I blew them out. It was probably just insulation burning. Stinks!!! Of course Charlie accused me of spraying cleaner in the works when I removed the knobs for cleaning. I know better than that! I spray the sponge & squeeze it almost dry. I called Sears. The parts are still under warrantee, but not labor. The first date that I could get for the guy to come out & look at it is 10-21. Tonight we ate oven fried chicken & nuked veggies. Tomorrow, I'll get out the old electric wok, crock pot & electric frying pan...Or maybe we'll just eat subs for a week.

Baggo sCraps

I finished my baggo sCraps challenge tonight. The first picture is the contents of the bag that I received & the second picture is the completed quilt. It measures approximately 21 X 28 "
Now I get to find out who to send it to.

Don't try this at home

Do not dry hot peppers in the microwave. We dry our herbs in the microwave-place on paper towel, zap 2 min, open door for 10 min, stir & repeat. Works great. Today, Charlie decided to dry a plateful of hot peppers that way-he first removed the stem & cut them in half & then started the drying process. The first cycle wasn't too bad-a couple of sneezes & a cough or 2, but the second time through was really rough. We both kept coughing & blowing our noses. My bronchial tubes still hurt. I think that it's back to air drying for the hot peppers. Oh, by the way, if you decide to grind up a batch of hot peppers, it's OK to use the food processor, but cover the whole bowl with a wet towel first. (We learned that one several years ago.)

Beadwork with Ultrasuede

I love working with Ultrasuede. This is the nametag that I wear at my local quilt guild meetings. I appliqued the trees, sewed on the Zuni bear bead & added the brown beads. Then I glued the grey Ultrasuede to a piece of plastic that was about 1/4" smaller than the grey, cut 2 holes in the green for the ends of the pin backing to stick through & glued the green Ultrasuede to the back. The purpose of the glue was only to hold everything in place while I did the backstitch beading with the green beads. When the green beading was done, I trimmed the 2 ultrasuedes to leave a slight border. (Even a Zuni bear has to s**t somewhere.)

son of baggo

One of the things that I've been working on lately, is a challenge from an online fiber art group. We call it the Son of Baggo exchange.
Several of us filled a quart sized bag with an assortment of fabrics & embellishments which we sent to Deidre. She sent one back to each participant. We did not know whose bag we received. We were to make a small quilt using mostly what was in the bag. Here's what I received:













This is the piece that I started first. I got to the tiger striped fabric, got stuck & decided that I didn't like it, so I put it aside & started a second one. As I was working on the second one, I was inspired to frame it in black chintz. & add the eye & feathers. I named it "I tawt I taw a puddy tat".




















This is the second one that I started. I named it "bouquet #3" Both pieces are about 8" X 11" They were really fun to do. I've started on a larger Baggo from another exchange that started with gallon sized bags. It'll probably be about 33" square, but that's all I'm telling for now.

My brother the friend of hummingbirds

I haven't posted in a while, so I'm going to do a couple tonight. My parents & older brother visited for a few days this week.
It is the duty of a younger sister to help her brother to keep a dignified appearance, so... when he said that he wanted to see the hummingbirds at a closer distance, I made him a special crown.
Doesn't he look "special"? Bobby believes that birds are really smart, so he was reading to them.