Mr. Rex

I hope everyone has had a peaceful and wonderful holiday. My favorite gift arrived on Christmas Eve when Cori came home for a week! I couldn't have asked for anything better. 

Most of you know we do things a little different here, we've had another successful Christmas and things are calming down. Since South Florida has decided not to participate in winter this year Cori and I have been starting each day with a bike ride, just riding and talking with the occasional stop for her to grab coconuts to take back to all of her dog friends (again with the coconuts for dogs). 

I'm so happy that I can finally show the quilt I made for her, I feel like it needs one of those labels that say "this took forever".  I was so excited about it I turned me into a five year old who wanted everyone up at 5 A.M. so we could open presents. 

Cori has always loved dinosaurs, all through her years of education when she would feel stressed I would get a call or text that said "I should have been a paleontologist", when she received her doctorate I gave her a small silver triceratops for the "road not taken" and when a T-Rex head popped on in my pinterest for ideas she immediately messaged "for me please". 

I took the picture and cropped and recropped him down to 42 pieces of computer paper which I put together like a puzzle, then used the sliding glass door (which he was too big for) for a light box to make the individual pieces.

I used Lara's idea from her book Crafted Applique, New Possibilities to treat the pieces so I knew it would last and not fray. 

Then I spent days quilting him, he's mostly pebbled which just about made me lose my mind, make a circle, make another circle, make hundreds of circles, LOL. It turned out awesome and the pebbling was perfect for skin texture. I finished with swirls in the outer blue section. He finished at 50" X 70". 

Cori loves him, I love him and I'm so glad I followed though with this labor of love. It always feels so good to be able to give the perfect gift, I'm still smiling about it.

Later Gators,

Dana

Stalled

All I need to do today is put simple borders on a commission quilt, not lofty goals, but I'm so stalled. I'm sure it's the holidays and so much going on.

Plus this little girl hasn't been feeling well

Her Vet called last night and changed her medication and had me thinking I'd be taking her for a quick run to the Vet's.

So imagine my surprise when The Bug came to me and said "Maya's being mean to me". 

Since Brady usually only fibs about food, (what treat? I didn't get a treat) I went to check it out and found that every time he tried to go out the doggie door, she would pounce on him, when I opened the door she took off and this is what I found when I went after her. 

I think she's feeling better :) She even started throwing coconuts at me, which is a game but they hurt if they hit you. That may sound odd to you, but Key's dogs think that coconuts and palm fronds that magically appear in the yard are the best toys. I have a couple of coconuts put aside for my granddogs for Christmas since they moved out of the land of magic coconuts. 

Our weather is beautiful, a cold front came through and it's in the 70's, so playing with the terrible twins sounds very enticing, but I really need to finish this quilt.

When Cori moved and I knew I would be with her for awhile, I ordered a bed and mattress for her spare room, then decided it needed a quilt (of course). I made this quilt in three days, but I had a lot of incentive and nervous energy, which David called losing my mind. 

I made the rug too, but I had that, I didn't instantly just whip that up :)

So what do you do when you're stalled? Push through it? Walk away? Go play with coconuts? Write a blog post? Please don't say you clean the house.

Later Gators,

Dana