Spooky Day

Happy Halloween, y’all! 

 Travis and Isaac

In a burst of optimism, hubby bought 7 or 8 bags of candy . . .

Leanne, Jaclyn and friends

and Marie brought over a big bunch of non-candy - tattoos, slinkies, erasers . . .

 Addison is a zombie assassin and her friend is the ultimate in scary-a politician!

and we had a grand total of *4* groups of trick or treaters, maybe 15 kids total. 

 Donovan 

Oh, well. The grands had fun and Marie’s taking all the leftover candy to work, so it’s out.of.our.house. 

 Leia 

Perfect!

Addy’s costume challenge for next year. Think her mom can pull it off??

Two Steps Back

Took another look at yesterday’s project . . . and broke out the seam ripper.

I thought there was too much blue, especially at the top, and hubby really disliked the row of black squares.

Fortunately, I only needed to rip out one entire row and parts of three others to switch fabrics.

It wasn’t fun but I’m infinitely happier with the results. It’s so much brighter and more cheerful.

Still only 7 rows to go!

Halfway

224 squares cut,

12 columns pinned,

6 rows sewn.

Halfway done. 

Christmas Is Coming

Spent two days picking out, and arranging, the 14 fabrics I need for this year’s Christmas quilt.

And realized today that, since I need to fussy cut some of the fabrics, I get to cut all 168 5” blocks individually, rather than doing it the ‘easy’ way with strip piecing. 

It’ll be worth it, right???

Also hoping, probably foolishly, to make this one too. And I bought fabric this week to make Donovan a quilt so I can teach Wenona how to make a quilt for her grandson out of the same fabric. In time for Christmas, of course. I think I’m going to be busy . . . . .

Duck, Duck, Goose

Today was the quilter’s equivalent of duck, duck, goose - 

 Supervision

 Backing for hubby’s UFO quilt

back, 

 Double checking that the backing is big enough

 This looks like sea coral to me but the designer says it’s a leopard print. Still pretty. 

back, 

top.

And one more backing, just to tidy things up.  

It’s even prettier up close. And it was 50% off at Roxanne’s last week, 

where we also found this treasure. I do love a good sale!

Zoo Doo

Fall is in the air (good Fall, not blustery Santa-Ana-winds-Fall), 

the weather is perfect and I had a craving for zoo animals

 Snow leopard is good at camouflage 

so we packed up Donovan and Jaclyn 

 Playing croquet with flamingo bats 

and headed for Santa Barbara. 

 Admiring Kisa, the male Amur leopard

I thought Jac would enjoy a day off school - her first time playing hooky! -

 Mom and baby Amur leopard are still hanging out behind the scenes

but I was oh so very wrong. Madam Grumpy almost had us turning around in the parking lot and going back home . . . 

But we survived! And the zoo decorations were so fun and clever this year. Wish I’d gotten more photos of them. Maybe we’ll go back next week with just Donovan??

Pumpkins and Face Paint

Pop brought home baby pumpkins for Leanne, Jac and their neighbor friends to decorate. 

Leanne went old-school, carving and scooping out the innards.

Jac decided to paint hers, and since she’s a traditionalist, 

and pumpkins are orange, she painted it . . . .  orange. That’s my girl!

Rach and Addy have been practicing their face painting skills. Spooooooky!

This week’s best Jackie Says:

Me: what’s your whole name?

Jac: Jaclyn Tyler 

Me: not Jaclyn Rose Tyler?

Jac: ~sigh~ That’s my in-trouble name. 

😂😂

Tradition

Gary, Shelly and Thomas are huge LA KINGS hockey fans

so for the past few years we’ve celebrated Thomas’ birthday

by going out to dinner,

then watching a Kings game from a suite at Staples Center. 

It’s such a great way to see a game - no drunks crowds, comfy chairs with lots of leg room, great view, plus hanging out with just friends and family. So suite, er sweet!

Hubby and I aren’t big sports fans but we do enjoy a good hockey fight game. So even when the Kings lose (second year in a row ☹️) it’s still a great evening. 

Halloweeeeen

I love Halloween, second only to Christmas.

We’ve got most of our decorations up already, earlier than usual,

and today we took advantage of the schools’ early-release Friday

to do our annual costume photo shoot. 

We took 92 photos,

of which 46(!) were useable,

 Jac was upset ‘cause she didn’t want Donovan to sit in “her” chair

and only 1 kid cried.

Victory!!

Leia is the Grim Reaper and Donovan is a Power Ranger;

Leanne is Bakugou Katsuki (anime character) and Jaclyn is Queen Elsa (again!). Happy Fall, y’all!