a happy girl with a happy pill

a happy pill quilt that is!!  it's FINISHED, washed and on the bed!!

i started to think it would never be finished after all of the delays.  but it is done and it is on the bed and it is claimed by the 16lb cat.  he bit me when i attempted to pull him out from underneath it so i could finish making the bed... 

now i just need some nice new pillows to coordinate.  my old ones don't work very well.

kidneys...

this is my father.

this is his new replacement kidney...

thankfully, surgery went well and he is recovering nicely.  now we all have to learn more of what's to come with only having the one.  #kidneycancerawareness 

knitting up a storm

i've been quiet on the blog-front, but there are a million things happening on the home-front.  including storms...  we've had rain for over a week and today is heavy.  there's a tropical depression moving in and frankly, we don't need it.

there are some knitting finishes, such as my "twist my stripes" shawl, minus the tassels.  it was fun and easy to knit and i got to learn a new knit stich that created the pretty twisted stitches.

the second finish is a kidney.  a kidney you ask?  why?  well, my dad was diagnosed a few weeks ago with kidney cancer and he will undergo a nephrectomy in less than a week.  my humorous attempt to make him feel better is to give him a new kidney to replace the one the doctors will remove.

 i've considered adding a small stone inside the stuffing for the full kidney stone effect... i just need to find the right one to stick in there.

the happy pill quilt is nearly finished.  i started work on the last rows of blocks last night - without the aid of a big ball of fur sleeping on top of it!  i need to figure out how i want to bind it still, but i'll worry about that in a day or two after i'm done with the quilting part.  then there are 5 other knitting projects i'm currently working.  yes, i have too much...

while not knitting or quilting or at the office and it's dry enough to paint in the garage, i'm working on the last few cabinet doors.  i have two that are still in place without a speck of paint and two large ones coated in primer and paneled.  

while i had an extra set of hands available, i enlisted the redhead to help install three upper cabinet doors.  so much easier to have another set of hands than to use knees and feet while you drill and screw in the hinges like i did on the lower doors.  the kitchen is coming together nicely.  just floors, lights, counter top cement work, a sink and building a new island to go!

to anyone reading who is in the path of hurricane florence - stay safe!!  leave if you are able so you do not get stuck.  and to anyone who is soggy already from the texas rains as i am, find yourself something to work on and keep praying for this new system to fizzle out or go somewhere else.  i need good weather while sitting at the med center with my parents next week.

crafting with cats

unlike the cats i have, or have had, who like to help me with my art and sewing/quilting/knitting... this is a whole other crafting with cats kind of post.

my brother and sister-in-law gave me this horrible book for christmas about crafting with cat hair.  yes, hair.  you read that correctly.  i swore then that i was going to make something once i collected enough cat hair to make something.

so, here i am, babysitting westychic's two cats while she is on a river tour of the danube river.  lucky.  it's hotter than hades here at home.  while i am babysitting them, she did mention i could brush thaddeus any time i wanted since i'm the only person who he lets brush him.  so i am...

he loves the brush...when i do it.

seriously.  one round of brushing compacted 5 piles of hair.

so as i collect grey and white hair from the big boy kitty we adopted after watching him as a refugee, karrie had a ziploc of orange hair that i'm adding to.  she is also determined i have to make something nasty for my brother.  i just have filled up the bag of orange kitty hair and need to start a second.

these are a definite yes:

even winston is interested in what i'm reading

these are a maybe:

and these... westychic picked out for me to make as gifts for my brother and sis-in-law:

i love my cats.  i just don't really want their fur purposely made into something.  it's already all over the stickin' house and my clothes as it is.  the little princess girl doesn't shed nearly as much as the big boy.

is he telling me something?

am i too slow a quilter?

i guess i need to step it up so he can sleep on it on the bed.  

the quilting process has begun!

oh my goodness...it's been a long time coming for a project that wasn't supposed to become a UFO.  just barely squeezed by on that.

the furry supervisors had to inspect

my happy pill quilt has 5 lines of quilting. (picture at the second line though).

and it's awesome so far.  i chose a brightly colored varigated thread for the top to go with the super bright colors of the blocks, and a black thread for the backing.  even though there are tons of colorful curves on the back, it still has so much black that it'll blend nicely.  and it does.  you can see above that the yellow matches the yellow cotton solid perfectly.  so does the green and my dark green solid.  and the red.  and the dark blue.  *squeeeee* i am currently happy and i really hope it turns out well.

i don't know why, but walking foot quilting actually scares me a bit.  and i am taking a vow not to turn my quilt in different directions if i don't have to - i usually do and it pulls on the fabric in different ways, so this should keep it even.... right?  but how the heck will i keep all of the quilt to the right side of the throat when i get to the left side of the queen-size quilt?  ugh.  i guess i'll be rolling it up later.

while i'm waiting on paint to dry in the midst of pouring rain, quilting is a great alternative.

summer jack of all things

the kid has been gone for 2 weeks and hubby has been working nights just a bit longer.  so what do i do all alone at the house after my 40 hours of daily grind?  oh... a little of this and that.

i have a helper while attempting to iron the top for my "happy pill" bed quilt.  

i went to sandwich and baste it 2 weeks ago, only to find out that the online store i purchased the backing from last year cut it a little short.  so i ordered another yard and i'm still waiting on that to arrive... grr...  i could have had it quilted and working on the binding!

then westychic and i finally started cutting out of collection of prints for a collaborative quilt project. she brought the original bundle of FQs over and during quilt fest, we purchase one yard cuts of other prints we liked.

then it took forever to get to a point post-Harvey where we could start work on it.  then we had to decide on what we were doing.  the pattern she brought over didn't quite work with our fabrics, so i pulled out my entire book and magazine and pattern stash.  few hours later, we had it narrowed down to two and then a trip to the store for template plastic.  cutting all of those wedges took quite a bit of time.

i'm at the point all my rows are complete per the pattern.  but i have enough cut to widen the quilt a little before i choose a border fabric.  i think i'll widen it by 2 wedges each row.

i started purl soho's notched hem tank top for a summer knitting project and garment.  i'm using knit one cotton yarn in a fingering weight.  it's a bit odd... lots of marls so it doesn't knit as smoothly and consistenly as i'd like.  

it's taking foooreeeever it seems.  i'm about 8 inches in of knitting in the round.  this pattern has a lot of firsts for me:  knitting section and putting on a holder, then knitting another duplicate section, then doing a cable cast between those two knit sections and joining in the round; short row knitting and soon.. somehow i'm splitting the knit fabric into the armhole sections and crochet edge finishing?  um ok...

while i'm not fretting over the tank, i'm working on a blanket for a gift, plus i broke out some beautiful hedgehog yarn.

this will be a shawl for me, in a pattern called "twisted stripe" that i found on ravelry.  it's got a fun "twist" in the contrast yarn - a silvery grey fuzzy lace yarn i had pulled from a long-time stash.

and now for the bigger project.... kitchen cabinet redo.

my kitchen has been under one stage of construction to another for a year and a half.  too many things got in the way (loss of a job in the house, kidney stones, heat, too busy, funerals, etc).  now that i've got quiet time and i'm not hurting from the kidney pain all day, i'm setting myself to doing it.  i filled in the raised sections of the cabinet doors and drawer fronts with a compound, now i have to sand it all down to minimize wood grain.  now i'm working on a few sections at a time to keep the nosy cats out of my cabinets.  sand, prime, insert beadboard in center panel, prime and final paint.  

i need new hinges still.  i don't want to attempt to clean off the old ones that were damaged by previous owners/tenants of my home.  i do have cabinet and drawer pulls though.  then after the cabinets are finished, it'll be time for the concrete countertop and floors.  and lights.  then it'll be done!