pickin' and grinnin'!

The "pickin' and grinnin" I'll get to in a bit...it's been a busy few days...as usual...but that's Florida for you!  

This is a piece of background fabric I brought with me that I'm going to use for my Carnival piece.  

It's actually brighter than it looks here, as usual! 

And this is the piece after I stenciled some circles on it.  Again, brighter in person!  Honest!   And the piece will be turned so just tilt your head to the left and you'll see what it will look like!  

I'm hoping to get it sandwiched today to start some quilting...but I have to finish some cleaning and then take the little one to the dog park so I can come back and give her a bath, dry/brush her then get ready to go  out with friends for dinner tonight.  Hmmmmmm maybe I won't get my piece ready for quilting afterall until Monday.  Tomorrow Carol and I are going to the Master Garden show, another of our annual events to attend.

Carol has been working on snap bags for her grandkids Easter treats!  She finished one the other day (I'll have to get a picture of it later) and started on two others this past week.

Carol was using my Bernina Circular attachment to make designs on the front.  Of course, we were dumbfounded trying to come up with the math to get the circles where we wanted to!  Oh, old age...what can I say! 
For one of her grandsons, Carol thought a character from CARS would be cute...so I had the brilliant (NOT!) idea of printing out a coloring page of the CAR then have Carol just straight stitch the outline.  So, my 2nd brilliant (NOT, again!) idea was to use the Wash-away Applique sheets.  I use these for my beading and have in other stitching....but what I didn't think about was the so called 'straight stitch' Carol was using was the triple straight stitch....my 3rd brilliant idea (NOT again!) was the heavier the threads the more the design would stand out!  I didn't think about the "heavier the threads" the tighter the applique sheet would be stitched to the background!

So Carol stitched her heart out and the design looked really good!  BUT...trying to wash away the applique sheet was another story.  That triple stitch using 12wt thread holds really good!!  Here's a picture of the CAR after soaking and rubbing!

Carol had to head home so I ironed the piece dry and here's where the pickin' and grinnin came to play!

I did get most of the pieces out after pickin' and grinnin for an hour!   I had a margarita while working on it and sitting out on the lanai was quite pleasant (my grinnin part).  There are just a few pieces we need to 'pick' out.  I think it's really cute.  Carol is going to get some fusible numbers (#93) otherwise her grandson will most likely let her grandma know it's not complete!  

So guess I better get my butt in gear and movin!  It's a beautiful day again...sunny, slight breeze....life is good!  Even if you are pickin' and grinnin!