Isn't It Obvious What the Obama's Are Doing?

Don't worry, this isn't a political blog post....read on!
Isn't it obvious that the Obama family wanted a dog like the Purse Dog? Well, they came pretty darn close! Here is the Purse Dog as she looked when she joined our family in 2004. Our lives have never been the same since! Let's look at some photos of the Purse Dog through the years...

Here she is last January, visiting her cousins. Dancing around in her pj's...With Daughter #2 in her new party dress. Purse Dog was only 2...
Another picture with Daughter #2 in the freezing cold. Oregon coast, Thanksgiving 2006...
Below she is pictured with Joaquin Phoenix...ok, it was my BabyBoy dressed up for a costume party...but the Purse Dog looked scared! As you can see, the Purse Dog gets scared when my BabyBoy dresses up. She doesn't like it one bit!
Here is America's Next Top Model...modeling some purses...doesn't she fit nicely in a purse?
...even this Amy Butler bag I made!
Here she is with Santa a few years ago. I don't think she liked that costume either!
I know I'm insane! But, it's true, I am crazy about my Purse Dog!
Happy Birthday to the Purse Dog! Let's party! (doesn't this make her 35 in dog years? Do you think she'll have a mid-life crisis?)

Where In The World Did Vivian Go?

I didn't realize how long it's been since I updated my blog! I have so much to share with you!

Here at my house in Orange County it's springtime. Here's a very "Spring-y" quilt for you to enjoy. Teri Christophersen of Black Mountain Quilts' "Chubby Chicks." I just finished doing the machine quilting on this darling quilt. A great quilt for using up your scraps.

The weather has been great here. Even my garden has sunflowers! Yes, sunflowers in March! You see, a few months ago I asked my gardener to clean up my vegetable garden for the winter. I guess there were some seeds left behind. All by itself, my garden has grown again. And I didn't do a thing. No kidding, I have a few tomato plants, carrot plants and the sunflowers bloomed last week! I love winter in California!

What else have I been doing? Waiting by the mailbox. Actually, my son has been waiting by the mailbox. You see, my BabyBoy is waiting for his mission call. His papers have been turned in and now he's waiting to find out where he's been assigned to serve for our Church for 2 years! I can't believe he's old enough. I still see him like this:And below is what he looked like last summer:
Below is what he looked like last week. He went to a celebrity-look-alike party with friends. The PurseDog was scared to see Joaquin Phoenix at our house!

The PurseDog is thinking, "This guy's going to serve a mission???"

What else have I been doing? Reading Twilight of course. I'm still so busy, but I read it whenever I get a chance. Remember I'm a new Twilight convert! Check out the new Scrabble Tile pendant my brother and his wife gave me! Don't you love it? Visit their Etsy shop and you can get one too!

And speaking of Scrabble Tile Pendants....

I was in Palm Springs last week visiting my brother and his wife. Below is a picture of 'Scrabble Tile Central.' Here they are busy working together making darling interchangable Scrabble Tile Pendants. They make them in their home...their HomeStudio!

You see, I went to visit them in the desert with my older sister. She came to visit me from Portland for a few days. Soon she'll be a grandmother for the first time! We had a great time together!

Here we are pictured below with our little brother, the artist, Mark McCune. That's some of his artwork on the wall behind us. He's amazing! We had a nice time visiting him and his family.

What else did my sister and I do? We went to quilt shops one day of course! We visited Gina Halladay's new fabric shop in Yorba Linda, Fresh Picked Fabrics. And my ol' favorite, Calico House in Placentia too! We also took a little visit to Nordstrom's of course, where my sister got a makeover at the Bobbi Brown counter. (my favorite!)

We also went to Downtown Disney. It's a great place to take a stroll in the evening. Plenty of good restaurants, shopping, and entertainment. Below, we are in front of Disney's California Adventures theme park. When you visit, you must take your picture in front of the C-A-L-I-F-O-R-N-I-A letters!

We had to play tourists, even though we grew up just 10 miles from here in Yorba Linda.

Here we are below enjoying the shopping too!

Until next time...blogging friends!

Now, back to work, Vivian!

Purse Dog And I Get To Babysit

Today the Purse Dog and I are babysitting 2 kittens. They are Daughter #2's new babies. Yes, that's right. I don't have any grandbabies yet. Just "grand-pets." Daughter #2 has 2 kittens, Rob and Tink, and Daughter #1 has a teacup poodle, Ruby, the Purse Dog's country cousin. Don't my daughters' pets count as grand-pets?

Here are the kittens trying to figure out what that furry thing is...Hey, it's the babysitter! Aren't they cute? They are a brother and sister, just 3 months old!

In honor of pets, how about a cute Amy Bradley quilt?

Here it is hanging up in my studio ready to be picked up. Notice below what is sitting on the table there on the right? That's not a candle! You'd never see a candle in my quilt studio. That's a Scentsy warmer. I love it. Wickless and flameless, it keeps my quilt studio smelling pretty and it's much safer! Daughter #2 sells them. Check out her website here: Scentsy.

Let's take a closer look at the quilt. Cute pets, don't you think? Ok, I don't know anyone with a cow as a pet! Or a sheep either! A pig, maybe!
Close-up shots. Cute bees appliqued around. Of course I did swirls allover. You know me!

In the green field I quilted some grass. And in the rainbow border I quilted swirls in variegated thread.

Here's a close up of a Purse Dog and a Cat. Too bad it doesn't look like my Purse Dog. And the cat doesn't really look like one of Daughter #2's kittens. But they turned out cute anyway, don't you think?

Now back to work, Vivian! Vivian and The Purse Dog have get busy and babysit the kittens! (it's not hard work at all...in fact, it's lots of fun!)

How Do You Do That Vivian? Vol. 4

This is a little tutorial on how I make a snowflake. But first, since we're talking about winter weather...

The other day here in Orange County, we had a sudden showering of hail.

You see our winters are very mild...I've even have some of my vegetable garden still!

Yes, that's right, hail. While the rest of the country has snow in the winter, we have pretty mild weather here...except for occasional showers. Rarely do we get hail. The Purse Dog didn't like it one bit!

"Let me it!"

I've lived in Orange County since I was 7. Winters with snow and freezing temperatures in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania and Roswell, New Mexico (the two places I lived before I was 7) are a vague memory to me. I love the winters here. Like The Purse Dog, I love mild temperatures, sunshine, and an occasional shower.

Many years ago, I was in Bethesda, Maryland with my sister. She was receiving treatments there for cancer at NCI. One evening during the fall, I was sitting in my sister's hospital room. It had been raining most of the day. Suddenly I heard what sounded like little pellets hitting the window. I went over to look out and see what this strange sound was. It was little ice pellets hitting the window. I had never seen or heard anything like it before.

I asked one of the nurses, "What is this?"

She answered, "Oh, that's sleet."
I said, "Oh my, so this is sleet! I've heard of sleet. I think I heard about it on the Weather Channel once."

She smiled, "You're not from around here, are you?"

I think she was really saying, "What planet are you from?"

I told her I lived in southern California, not far from Disneyland, and that I had never seen sleet before. She just smiled and left the room. I'm sure she went over to the nurses station and told them about me. They probably had a good laugh.

******************

Now I don't know how to quilt sleet, but I can quilt a snowflake. Let's get on with the tutorial, shall we?

Machine quilting numerous Christmas and winter quilts, I was always looking for a nice snowflake pattern. I could never find one I liked, so I made this one up:

First you draw lines like this. I use that cheap chalk I told you about before.
Then you quilt these shapes. They kind of look like holly leaves. You quilt them in opposite corners. Use those chalk lines for reference points.
You need to quilt 4 of them. Next you quilt up about two-thirds of the way up, stop briefly, and then come back down.
You make these lines with little notches you see below. You make 4 of the, using those chalk lines for reference.
Here it is all finished. See how easy!
Lastly, you wipe away the chalk lines with a microfiber cloth--like I told you before.
And here's a variation below of that snowflake. I quilted it on a scrap cloth in variegated thread. It's essentially the same designs, but at a different angle. Why not add some loops and "sparkles" too.
I hope this tutorial made sense. I do apologize for sharing a "winter" design here in February. Maybe where you live it's still snowing. Or maybe it will help you in the next holiday season!

The Purse Dog and I need to get back to work! I've got tons of quilts to do and she needs to finish her nap!

They Make Our Lives Whole

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole." --Roger Cara

That is one of the quotes on the Amy Bradley "Dazzling Dogs" quilt I just worked on recently. It's true though...dogs really do make our lives whole!

Another quote on this quilt put a smile on my face. It said: "The more people I meet, the more I like my dog."

Each of these blocks were appliqued by my customer. She really had a great collection of fun fabrics to use in this quilt.

You may notice all the dogs are missing eyes. After my quilting was done, the quilter was going to sew button eyes on the quilt. (I appreciate that she waited to put the buttons on...that way I didn't need to worry as I quilted around them!...I wouldn't want to to hit some poor dog in the eye!)

I used different background filler techniques throughout.

I also changed the threads to match the fabrics. I didn't want my machine quilting to be too distracting on this already bright, fun quilt.This is the perfect quilt for dog-lovers, like me! Don't tell the Purse Dog that there were other dogs before her! She thinks she's my only one true love. Below, I am five years old, holding our beagle Chumbo, in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania.And pictured below are my kids here in California when they were little with our bassett hound, Molly. She was a wonderful, sweet, loyal dog. During the years we had Molly, I had this cartoon hanging on our fridge. I hope you can see it. Posted inside the dog house of the bassett hound, a sign reads:

"Daily Schedule--8:00 Chase Ball, 10:00 Chase Cat, 11:30 Chase Mailman, 2:00 Chase Cars, 4:30 Chase Tail."

The owners say: "Boy, what a life--what I wouldn't give to just lay around all day!"

That sounds like the Purse Dog too! But she lays around all day keeping me company as I quilt.
Here she's saying, "Now back to work, Vivian!"