My Halloween Projects Reveal Plus Hossa Update

Better late than never ;0)

My Halloween projects have been done for a few days, was going to show them yesterday but I was busy with my fabric stash (more on that later).

 

This quilt is called "Frank & Friends" by quilt soup

 

I used pumpkin patch as my pantograph design along with a light grey thread.

 

This quilt was from my teaser post using a Riley Blake mini jelly roll and kona black. Pattern is called "Scrap Basket Blues" and can be found in Kim Bracket's first book "Scrap Basket Surprises" ( I love this book, I have made so many quilts from it).   

 

Using a med. grey thread I quilted it using the "Entangled" pantograph.  I love how it turned out!

 

and last but not least...update pics on my eldest daughter's puppy; "Hossa"

 

not so little anymore and he's still growing!!

The Dog Days of Summer

What we did on our summer vacation....lol, remember back in the old days when you went back to school you always had to write an essay on what you did on your summer vacation? Well the kids have been back in school for over 2 weeks now and our routine is starting to get back to normal after one crazy summer. 

 

At the end of July we had to put down our beloved Misty (the black Cocker Spaniel). She was 13 years old blind, death, and full of tumors all over her body. Here she is with our other dogs Sandy, and Kanner visiting with our neighbors cat (who unfortunately went missing this summer and believed to have been slain by coyotes).

 

 My eldest daughter Vicki was very attached to Misty so when we had to say goodbye to her my daughter brought home a new puppy...her "Baby". His name is Hossa (yes another dog named after a Chicago Blackhawks player). He is a Lab/Chow/Mastiff mixed and will be a BIG dog. But in these 2 pics he is tiny.

  

Unfortunately he did not stay this small....will post more pics of him later this year.

 Then there is my Daughter Rachel, she is now a senior in high school and has been trying to find a part time job for the past year...yes that long. Jobs are scarce these days for teenagers and college kids due to the economy and so many adults out of full time employment that are forced to take on multiple part time jobs just to make ends meet and take care of their families.  So Rachel started sewing again :0) she is thinking of selling baby quilts on my web site to earn some money for college. I have been tossing around the idea of opening an Etsy store to sell finished quilts for awhile now (might just start out selling them on the Gecko website to see how that goes first) which got her thinking that would be a good way to make some money. So here she is working on a tumbler block baby quilt in blues (fabrics from my stash of course). We are hopping to have some quilts for sale before the end of the year of various sizes. Stay tuned for more on this. Even though Gecko Quilts is evolving we will still be doing the long arming part of the business & will be working without vacations/breaks through the holidays. So call and make your drop off appointments as soon as possible to ensure that they will be done in time for Christmas. :0)

...and Baby Makes 3!

Monday night we picked up the newest addition to our family...

He is a 4 month old Chihuahua named "Kaner" after Patrick Kane from the Blackhawks (Chicago, Hockey). Over the weekend we were at the sales office (visiting & checking on the progress of our house) and they were talking about this little guy and how he needed a home (the back story is that the owner who owns the mother wasn't able to find a home for this one or his brother after they were born and was about to take him to the animal shelter when a hospice nurse who cares for the owner told her that she would find good homes for them...she founf a home for the one but this one still needed a home). Oh did I mention that he was free? :0) Kaner is a brindle colored short hair chihuahua, they are suppose to be rare. Anyways, we talked about it and decided to take him in...as if we didn't have enough on our plates right now with the up comming move and MIL moving in with us this spring. I figure God wanted us to have him because he was free, and that he has gotten along really well with the kids and our 2 other dogs.

Here he is sleeping with his new collar.

Check out his profile! He is also a really nice snuggle puppy, he crawls right up on your lap and falls asleep.

   

 

....and Then There Were Two

No your eyes aren't playing tricks on you...there really is 2 geckos. Tiger is the one on the right and the new one, Tony is on the left. I know the names are kinda cheesy, Tony/ Tiger but I had nothing to do with the names. The kids & husband did. Any ways we were heading out of the hose through the garage to take my oldest back to college a few weeks back and Tony was right next to our mini van, maybe he wanted to hitch a ride down to Tucson. Well as soon as the kids saw it they started pleading with Chris to catch it, which he did and so a new pet/ mascot was brought into an already crowded home, lol. They seem to get along well enough, I mean it's been 2 weeks and they are both still living. And check this out.....

Tony also likes the cricket box!, That's him peeking up at me through the window. So now we have 2 crazy geckos living with us, I guess I have to quilt more quilts to keep them happily fat with crickets!

    

Pets

Over the years I have owned quite a few pets, mostly dogs but also a few birds, fish, and the most recent a Tucson Banded Gecko. The kids found him a few months back hanging around in our garage and they thought that I needed a mascot for my business. So we gave our fish to friends of ours and moved the Gecko inside.

Here are a few pics of him...the kids named him Tiger because of his stripes. He is very active in the evening hours and sleeps most of the day. He loves to eat crickets so we try to keep him well fed with a box of them from Pet Smart.


He also loves to climb on the side of the broken ship pieces left over from the fish (the crickets also like to climb all over the ship as well). 


He still hasn't figured out however why there is alot of people staring at him through glass.

We have 2 dogs as well as this Gecko.
A black Cocker Spaniel who is almost 10 years old. Her name is Misty (Superstion Mystic is her official AKC name) we named her after the Superstition mountains that are near by.

Did I mention that she loves quilts!
She seeks them out when she wants to take a nap, like here, LOL!

We also rescued/adopted a short haired chihuahua/ Daschound mix several years ago when she was just a few months old. We named her "Sandy". Here she is with one of my daughters, Rachel (she thinks Sandy is exclusively hers....but Sandy begs to differ). Sandy also loves to wear bandanas, Rachel started putting them on her when she was a puppy and she use to trip over them because they were bigger than she was. Sandy is the more friendlier of the 2 dogs and is the one that is the most vocal during the customer appointments.