Mystery of the hunter solved!

So, DH had a call on Friday...it was from the "kid" (not sure how old he is) that had asked (back in October?) permission to bow hunt deer in the ravine on our property. At the time DH had said it was fine. This time he was calling to see if we might have his hunting blind. I don't know why he set it up down by our pond back in November, as it wasn't anywhere near the ravine and I don't think a blind is particularly good for bow hunting anyway, but at least now we know who it belongs to. He hasn't come by to pick it up yet, but plans to. DD and I should have left it in the pond and let him fish it out himself!

So, DH's latest project has been on-going for a while now. He is installing computer monitors and electronic photo frames on the wall in the great room. Here are the first 3 boxes to go in the wall...

He added 2 more openings for the smaller frames...
Here, the 3 monitors are up...
All of the monitors and frames are up on the wall...one of the small frames actually has a photo showing on it! Progress!
All 6 monitors/frames were up and working on Superbowl Sunday...
Speaking of the Superbowl, I had to make a quilt to hang in the entryway by the front door...
And here is a photo of our projector screen when Santonio Holmes caught the football near the end of the game to put the Steelers ahead again!
And the look of disbelief on the face of the Cardinal when Holmes made the touchdown... :-D
And the final score - Go Steelers!!!!

This is the box that arrived on my doorstep yesterday - could it be my birthday present??? I want to play with it (but I have to wait until the 12th)! :-(
Here is Tortellini - out for a walk in the kitchen...
And here is Tortellini trying to bite into a grape tomato. It kept rolling away from him.

After he gave up, I held onto the tomato so he could bite into it. He gobbled it all up after that!

Christmas is coming!

So, we finally found the right size light bulb for the glass-topped coffee table that sits between the 2 red chairs in front of the fireplace, and now that there is an outlet in the floor, we were able to see how it looks when it's lit up. It's a fun table!
Last night I decided to finish a UFO (UnFinished Object) in my long list of quilting and sewing UFOs. I'm also probably procrastinating on finishing DD's window seat cushion because I'm not exactly sure how to go about making it. :-D

I started this quilted wall hanging back in 2004, right after I'd taken an online quilting course (Starting From Scratch) at http://quiltuniversity.com/. I embroidered all the reindeer and Santa squares and sewed the top together. After that, it sat for quite a while because I had never done machine quilting before and I wasn't quite sure what my next move would be.

The green squares were embroidered after I put the quilt sandwich (backing fabric, batting, quilt top) together so that the stitches would help hold the 3 layers together. I was having an issue with my sewing machine back then and the tension was really loose on the back of the quilt, but I didn't realize it until I had embroidered most of the green squares. I set the quilt aside for a while (which turned into a couple of years - I didn't like going down to the basement to sew in our former house). Last night I got the quilt out and "stitched in the ditch" in the blue squares, in the two text squares, and around the outer border. Then I trimmed the quilt up and sewed the binding on the outer edge.

I like how it turned out. I designed the quilt from scratch, using embroidery designs from http://emblibrary.com/. Here are some close-up shots of some of the squares. Here is Dancer and the Christmas tree outlines...
And here is Donner and the Santa hat outlines...
And, of course, Rudolph had to be embroidered on blizzard fabric instead of the snow fabric that all the other reindeer were embroidered on, since Rudolph had to save Christmas in the midst of a blizzard...

I still need to make a label and sew it on the back, but it's nice to finally have it done (and it's only been in the making for 4 years!).

Loan closing!

Success! We closed on our building loan yesterday and expect that our builder will begin next week. The plan is to put in the driveway, cut down any trees that are in the way of the house, and then break ground (finally - only 3 months after we wanted to break ground).

For the quilters out there, I started working on my Quilt Diva pattern. She will hang on the door of my sewing studio in our new house. My friend and I went on a Quilt Shop Hop last June and I took the pattern with me so I could purchase the fabrics for her. I even found zipper fabric that I can use for the zipper on the suitcase! I have all the pieces cut out and need to fuse the smaller parts together and then finish assembling her. Isn't she fun?

Back to the house...I'm having trouble locating the kitchen sink that I want. I would like a sink with 2 large square or rectangular bowls. I've found one, but it is an apron front sink and I'm not sure I like that look for this house. It is wide though - almost 40" and the 2 bowls are each about 18" square which would be great! My other option is to have 2 separate sinks near each other...