Craziness

First moment of "crazy"
Went one last time to JoAnn's (I KNOW; I'm so bad; like we don't have them in Detroit...)  However, I NEEDED to use my two 50% off coupons which only started today, to buy some duck cloth and Pellon Fusible Fleece to make a couple of bags.  Well, the bar code hadn't loaded on my JoAnn coupon on my iPhone, drat, and so she suspended my order so I could go next door to Five Guys Burgers to see if they had free wifi, nope.  So, a crazy dash across the parking lot to a restaurant in which we once ate to piggyback on their wifi, to reload the coupon (in 90 degree heat today too) to save $8.  Sidenote to those of you who have Smart phones and are wondering why I don't have internet on my iPhone...well, I do, with my Canadian Telus SIM card.  However, we put in our American AT&T SIM card when we're down here, which is a GoPhone plan, and it doesn't have internet, or if it does, I think it's really expensive.

Second moment of crazy
was making a crazy left turn on a 6-lane 50-mph state road, and parking in a closed barber shop, (that I think might just be the barber's house when it's "CLOSED", oops) and and risking my neck by braving the perils of fire ants, spiders, and snakes, to get a pic of "my" jacaranda tree,  ... then later a crazy u-turn on that same state road to go home.

Oh yeah, it was worth it.  And these were taken with my almost-3-year-old iPhone 4!  Might have to walk down there with my HD iPad.

Started off my Sunday just "splendiferously": went to Rosemary Court for Ashtanga, Mysore-style, just wonderful.  Followed that up (after a coffee and scone of course!) with a 3-mile dogwalk as per usual Sunday route.  Mother Nature gave me a gorgeous splash of colour, just like last Sunday with the teal and black Kingfisher.

Third moment of crazy!

White or Giant Bird of Paradise Flower

Stunning colours

The foliage looks so much like Joe's banana plants he grew last year.  He didn't get any flowers, however.  I did not know what exactly this was, so I googled blue flowering banana plant, and voilà!  I found this site.  (Scroll down a little ways.)  Cool. So it is also known as a Wild Banana!

I think that is a pretty crazy-looking (in a drop-dead gorgeous way) flower!

Biscuit Basket

Happy National Quilting Day, one day late!  I spent my day making this basket!  Finish Number . . . I don't know, I should count them up!  Or not, as I'd probably be elated for a nanosecond, and depressed the next when I realize we are here for one more month and I had 26 total projects, of which I think I might have completed 10.  Never mind: focus on the positive!

I bought this pattern and the packet of Rigid Weave 1 3/4" roll last year at my LQS, Cotton Patch Quilt Shop last year.  Planned to make it in the summer, but it didn't happen.

I thought I might make it out of some of the batiks I bought for another of Karla Alexander's Stack a New Deck quilt, but I saw this roll in JoAnn's a month or two ago, and just LOVED the colours.  Thought it might grow up to be in a Bento Box quilt, but then decided nope, it would be perfect for this project.

This is the first time I've bought and worked with jelly rolls.  I'm sure those at a quilt shop are die-cut, so very precise; this one was not!  Consequently some of the strips were as much as 3/16" too wide.  I tried to compensate during stitching the tubes, but still had a few tubes where the fabric is not taut against the stabilizer.

Pretty colours, n'est-ce pas?

The good news is that I got it 50% off , so $6.50 for 20 strips, pretty good I'd say.

Auditioning the layout prior to sewing

One complaint regarding the pattern is that she insists on using 44" wide fabric, something which I believe is pretty hard to find.  The majority tend to be 42-43" wide.  These strips were not 44", so I had to use two to make a 22" tube of fabric

Below, you see the bottom all woven.  The 3 green ones form the sides and the 5 blue and green ones form the front and back longer sides of the basket.  It's totally finished off inside, no seams or raw edges.

Starting to weave

It was tricky to get the tubes butted tight against each other, and I stabbed myself several times in the process!

The end result was worth it, however.

The colours are jewel-like no?  And speaking of jewels (gosh, I'm good sometimes, ha!) what is that pendant you see hanging from the top centre of the basket?

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A closer look.  Yep!  It's one of the 1.97 earrings pair I picked up at JoAnn's the other day!  It just called for something to jazz it up a bit, and the earrings were right there...  I'll use the other one for either a cool look (cough) and just wear one earring, lol, or I'll attach it to a zipper for a pull with bling.

Think I might be changing the lanai colour scheme...
What IS that brownish thing I just noticed now in the righthand lower corner??  Sigh.  Bella's butt.  HOW many pics has she backed her butt into??  It IS a cute butt...

What am I going to use this for?  Joe's usual question when I want to buy something, that, or, "Where are you going to put it?"  So, I've been thinking of possible uses.  Sewing room of course, as I can never have enough catch-all organizers, or a lanai catch-all, and I suddenly thought of the bathroom too!

And yes, those are all shells and sand dollars from the Sarasota/Bradenton area beaches.