All Kinds of News

First: it's NOT a hernia! I just have to keep taking it easy for a couple more weeks and the pain should fade. Pixel was so excited she had to pop out of the dehydrator's box.

Second: FuzzyHusband successfully made it to the originally planned snowshoe hiking/camping area with his friends and they're off the grid. You couldn't pay me enough to be on the shore of Lake Superior right now. No sir and/or ma'am! I hope they're having fun though. Two critters in particular are missing him though.

Third: We got a wee bit more snow here, but mostly had crazy winds. Thankfully I don't even need to brush snow off the driveway to get out. Most of it ended up in the back yard.

Fourth: I'm about to start in on this lovely little number for one of the burlesque dancers. If possible I want to take a muslin of the jacket to rehearsal tonight. But we all know how good intentions go.

Fifth: I'm now officially part of the burlesque troupe as a production member. This means I'll be able to actually say I'm part of the group and not just their occasional seamstress. One of the things I'll be doing for them is orchestrating their social media presence and helping the other production member with the website when he's unavailable. Once the website is done and live, I'll be linking to it on the sidebar.

That's all the crazy news here. How are things in your parts of the world? See you next weekend and stay warm!

Busy, But Not Boring

We've been busy this week. There was a fundraising event for The Center For Prevention of Abuse at one of our favorite local bookstores that FuzzyHusband and I attended.There was an open mic where survivors were invited to share anything, so I read a couple of my poems. We won some lovely items from the silent auction and a doorprize as well.

I wish the needle artist would've signed this piece.

Stupid camera didn't rotate.

Lovely doorprize won by FuzzyHusband who gave it to me... after determining that the chain was too small for him. ;-)

Otherwise we've been cleaning, doing chores, and other boring things for most of the rest of the time. Also we're getting down to the wire for Festival of Trees this year. Only 2 more large trees to decorate, possibly 3 if another one gets sponsored. 

I did get to take Mercedes on a long walk and play some Pokemon Go though. She enjoyed herself.

And got some cuddles in with Pixel Pea.

I've got a bunch of laundry that needs doing, so I've got to get off here. 

For the Birds

I couldn't really quilt anything this past week. The diamond tabletopper requires special needles that work for metallic thread and the fox baby quilt was waiting on me to purchase some new equipment. So I started a new project to keep me busy in the meantime.

I didn't really take many photos as I went, but this is where it's at now. The pattern can be found in Table Please: Part Two from Art to Heart by Nancy Halvorsen.

A fun combination of needle turn applique and piecing. And it's been kitted up for 3 or 4 years at this point. I did switch out one of the original batiks in favor of the bright yellow one for the top center bird. It's roughly 26 inches square and was designed as a tabletopper, but I've added hanging loops to make it more versatile.

If you poke the photo, you can see some of the quilting details clearer. Usually I make the binding before I quilt a piece, but it's taken me all week to decide how I want the binding to look. All that's left is to make a label, make and attach the binding, and then do the hand finishing. Not bad for a week's work!

Once the binding's attached, I'll get the diamond tabletopper quilted. The necessary needles came in last Tuesday.

Then it will be time to play with my new toys and start the fox quilt. I picked up a set of Westalee rulers yesterday. For anyone unfamiliar with the product, it's basically Spirograph for quilting. I'm looking forward to upping my quilting game on the smaller pieces I decide to do myself at home.

I'll be dropping the sea turtle Dresden top and back off with the long armer on the 14th. She's got several quilts in line that need to be done for the county fair, so she won't get to mine until after.

That's all for now. I'll leave you with some cuteness while I get to making some quilt binding. Tare care and stay cool!

Teaser Revealed and Cuteness

Remember this teaser from last weekend?

Well here's what I've done so far with it.

Originally this was supposed to be a single Dresden plate on a wall hanging, but the teacher in our class gave us the bright idea to turn it into a more utilitarian quilt with four Dresdens. Whoops.

My difficulty was the fabric I'd picked for the sunburst rays for the original singleton. It's an older fabric and I snagged the last fat quarter in the shop when I kitted things up for the class. So I improvised and made each sunburst different. Two have blue backgrounds and the other two have green backgrounds.

As of this extremely lazy moment, all four are appliqued onto their background squares and I've cleaned up all the threads. However I don't have a picture because they're downstairs and it's actually after 1:00 in the morning here. I figured I'd type up the blog now so I can get right to sewing in the morning.

I'm trying to get several smaller projects finished to the point of hand binding, slip stitching, etc before Tuesday afternoon. I'm sending my sewing machine off for cleaning and the pickup is first thing Wednesday morning. I'm hoping I'll have plenty of hand finishing to keep me busy, but if I get desperate I can always piece something on my old machine. It still works just fine, it just lacks all the bells and whistles the new one has. And the rule of thumb with piecing is to start and finish a project on the same machine because they're all a bit different.

I'm actually finished with my friend's quilt, but want to wait until I've delivered it before I post pictures anywhere. So I'll be sharing that next weekend. Until then, have some cuteness to tide you over.

See you next weekend!

Bittersweet

On Friday most of the surviving members of our local miniature club met at our recently departed friend's home to sort through her supplies, stash, and tools so we could purchase what we'd like from her husband. There were many tears and lots of laughs during the hours we spent combing through her treasures. Lots of memories were traded back and forth too. And lots of questions like, "what do you suppose she saved THIS for?" 

Honestly the whole day was overwhelming and I didn't make it through every section and bin before my brain was totally numb. We're talking about decades of collecting that was extremely well-sorted in labeled bins. And that wasn't even her quilting supplies. Those were on a different floor. On and the needlework supplies. Sometimes we'd find something that we knew should stay with the family, so we made room on a shelf for all those things.

These are a few of the treasures that came to live with me. I could spend all day photographing what I brought home, so these are just the highlights. 

I'm already putting together things of hers to build a scene around the sofa bed. I'll have to clean my studio (don't even get me started on that fresh hell) so I can supplement with things from my stash. I've also got some rough plans for the Japanese miniatures. I've been collecting some similar pieces over the years and will be combining them. Somehow. No clue how yet.

Other than that, the rest of the week seems pretty mild. Mercedes got a bath and I baked cookies.

That's all for today. I need to go try to be useful somehow. See you next week!

Good Intentions As Paving Stones

I'd planned on doing an early blog post last week to commemorate FuzzyHusband's and my 10th wedding anniversary, but things were just too busy. I was too busy trying to finish this piece and neither of us wanted to deal with holiday crowds, so we've opted to wait until after the holidays to have a nice dinner out somewhere.

I did get the vest done and delivered on Saturday. Kinda bummed that I'm still too sick to see it being worn on New Year's Eve.

FH bought me some beautiful jewelry, which is a rare and wonderful treat reserved for special occasions.

He also picked flowers that were the same type he used to buy me when we were poor college students and just starting to date. So sentimental! <3 p="">

Saturday was busy right up until I passed out from exhaustion. I had a cake to bake, a wreath to finish, bags to pack, critters to prep... all kinds of things needed doing. The last wreath of the season got done whilst waiting on the cake layers to cool. I designed it for my mother-in-law specially because she loves nutcrackers.

Then I wanted to make a post for Christmas Eve/Day, but again life was filled with wonderful things that were more important.

Tuesday morning I woke up with a fever and very little voice. When we finally got home that afternoon, Ellie Bean was injured and we had to rush to the vet. She'd somehow injured her lip, and the vet (not our regular one) wasn't sure how so he gave us antibiotics and sent us home.

I slept through most of Wednesday and Thursday as the lurgy symptoms got worse. Thankfully all signs point to it being a nasty cold and not an infection.

We went back to the vet Friday, in a snowstorm, because her lip looked worse. FH was home around 2:30 after swinging by the grocery store and passing 5 wrecks in 3 miles. The roads were heinous. It took us a while to get there and I'm glad we left way early for the appointment.

 This time we saw our regular vet and she's seen this type of injury before. Apparently Ellie likely failed to stick a landing after jumping down from something, landed on her faced, and skidded. The vet was impressed that her lip didn't tear away from her face. Confident that we weren't dealing with a potential abscess next to her jaw, Ellie and I headed home in the storm.

It was still coming down late yesterday evening. I haven't even gone near the door today as I woke up coughing and have no voice. Himself has been taking care of me all day. I've slept through most of it, as rest and fluids are about all one can do for a virus.

I figured I'm likely to sleep through most of tomorrow too, but since I was awake now I'd go ahead and update the blog. So Happy New Year to all. May 2018 be kinder to the world than 2017 has been.

More Distractions

Mostly of the wee feline persuasion. Purr-suasion perhaps? Anyways, Ellie Bean is putting on a healthy amount of weight. I've been trying to convince FuzzyHusband to let her stay, but that's still up in the air. She does have a place on the waiting list for the no-kill shelter, but I'd rather her stay here. She's a love, most of the time, when she's not being an ornery kitten.

Also she and Mercedes adore each other. Can you see Ellie's foot trying to reach Mercedes from the other side of the door? She knew Mercy was in the hallway.

I had yet another birthday this past week. Funny how those things keep coming around. Himself brought me flowers when he got off work early and we went to see the second Kingsman movie. Loved it!

I did make myself a birthday cake, but didn't get a picture of it. I used the Wilton butter cake recipe on their website, but I made a chocolate cream cheese icing.

I'm working on some pattern alteration at the moment. It's nothing major, just adjusting a bra pattern for a couple of the burlesque dancers. Once I get the mock-ups sewn up, I'll start with photos. I still need to get pictures of the new designated sewing area downstairs.

That's all for now. I"m hoping to be done with the mock ups this week and get the real bras sewn in short order. I've also got to prep some stuff for miniature club this coming week. We'll see how that goes.

See you next weekend!