felt Ball Halloween Wreath

 The forsythia wreath that's been on my front door since spring was starting to bug me, but I am nowhere near ready for Halloween decorating yet. (What?!?!)  I bought these felt balls at homegoods when I was stalking for Halloween ornaments (that I never found) and wasn't sure what to do with them. Then I decided wreath time it is.

 I had a ton of white  left over from the last wreath I made, so in those went too.

Squish and glue, squish and glue. Super fun! Now I need to find the bats.

Halloween quilt

 All done! I think there are few blocks I missed listing on my posts, I will try and go back to get those in there too.  It was a bit of a challenge to get all the blocks together since I didn't bother trying to make consistent sizes.  Hmmm, not the best plan, but it still worked out.

I do love the result. And it was fun.

It was NOT fun taking off one million tiny scraps of papers. Nope, still hate that.

 Vintage polka dot fabric on the back.

 some kind of voodoo stripe matching happened on this corner.

 The rat might be my favorite.

details:
Started and finished September 2017
Paper piecing for all but a few blocks
All the fabrics I could find in the universe that would work
My usual cotton batting
A keeper! Already hanging in the living room
Patterns in previous posts labeled Halloween Paper Piecing

End of the halloween paper piecing

 Candy - I just made this up as I went

 candy corn

 Poison Apple (this is applique)

 ring of coffins  $ (And this is English paper piecing)

 trick or treat (I LOVE this one)

 spinning wheels $$$

That Dracula there is Vlad the vegan vampire (I didn't do the embroidery)

Hapde Burfday Grant!

 We had a hot wheels party for Grant this year. It was HOT. 100 boiling degrees this late in September. I am just gonna admit I am so burnt out  on the party thing. Three kids, something like 22 parties. I am phoning it in these days. (I would say poor grant but the kids had fun anyway.)

 We had a car wash station.

 Tattoos.

 An awesome race track that Dave built and the kids loved and kept going back to.

 Hot wheels favors.

And spoon racing (which grant rocked like a maniac after spending the whole previous day crying that spoon racing was way too hard and not for him) and an egg hunt (which was meant to be a car hunt but cars don't fit in eggs.)  Never mind, grant loved it.

 Five!

 There were tons of hot wheel presents.

And chocolate donuts (tires) instead of cake.

My Dearest Grant,

Today you are five!

Five definitely feels like a turning point.  We are eeking ever closer to full time school and this is our last year at home together.  I still love this growing up thing, you get more awesome every year.

Right now you are:
funny as hell
smart as a whip
stubborn as a mule
getting easier to reason with
curious
in LOVE with hot wheels (And cars in general)
pretty obviously a third child (ha!)
best friends with Sammi and Colton
that kid who waves to every random person everywhere we go
learning math
starting to write
starting to read a teensy bit
artistic
insistent
a great helper
and so many other things but lord only knows how long it would take me to come up with them in the middle of our current living room chaos.

I love you to pieces kiddo and I am really going to miss you next year!

Love,
mama

Flea Market Sunday

 I was SO tired this morning after Grant's party in the blazing heat yesterday, but apparently even being dead won't keep me from junk.

I mentioned this on insta and it's worth saying again - I have no idea how I keep being so lucky in the quilt department. It used to be very, very hard to find them and I could never afford them. As long as they keep coming, I will keep buying!

I love her little *make do* in this block.

On another note - I had to update my iPad to iOS 11. I lost my access to blogger from my ipad! I was doing so well with uploading and scheduling posts. Now I am back to the most complicated system ever as I try to work around it. (I really only take pics with the ipad these days.)

This is a SERIOUS bummer.

Grant 5 year old portraits

Flea Market Finds

This week I went to the flea SURE I was going to buy only Halloween. I bought no Halloween and all quilts. Hmmmm. This is a partial quilt top. (The light was so bad, it was actually cloudy for a few days.)

Another quilt top. Could be N or Z, I am thinking Z based on the length. Rather unusual to see letters, never mind Z!

Glass birthday candle holders.

A flock of wood birthday candle holders.

A quilt that was filthy and wadded up on the floor. Thankfully it's hot as a bugger here right now so It got a wash and a sun. It cleaned up pretty well.

I also had the chance to get in the basement of a friend. I bought a lot from her, including this doll quilt and a lone quilt block. (Clever construction there!)

Halloween!  A sweet flannel costume.

Ornaments (that were not $1 a box.)

And a few random Christmas things.

I am rushing to finish the Halloween quilt, have a birthday party for Grant, make Halloween costumes and go see IT tonight. Busy, busy!