Randomnymity

So, I made up a word. In an effort to counteract the grey skies I see out my window, here is a shot from cuteoverload.com:
I have been fighting a cold the last few days. B. takes the early morning feedings, so I take NyQuil at 2am and sleep until 7. Baby K is such a sweet little thing! She doesn't fuss unless we're late with her bottle...late meaning more than 30 seconds after she opens her eyes!! She has been sleeping well, all things considered. Typical newborn schedule of 2-hour naps then awake just long enough to change the diaper and eat.

I haven't had the energy to sew. Last week, I was waiting on thread for two shop samples that need to go on the longarm. The thread has arrived so I will put on the first one that will be quilted with a pantograph. I think I can get that one done this afternoon. The second one will be freehand - yikes! My mom wants a leafy vine type pattern, which my brain is translating as the first step towards feathers, which scare me to death, so I'm playing the procrastination game. I'm also not sure about my thread color choice, so I'll have to recharge my camera and put it up for a blogosphere vote.

I have two procrastinator activities...Big Kahuna Reef from Yahoo games...version 2 has 750 levels - woo-hoo! That can keep me busy for weeks! It's a simple match-3-in-a-row elimination game, but after every four levels or so you unlock a new fish to add to your underwater landscape. And that underwater view is my new relaxing screensaver.

Number 2 on the do-anything-but-quilt activity list is travel the blogosphere on a web ring. I have a list of favorite blogs on my yahoo page, so I check in there first. Then I start at Tonya's site and travel around the Quilt Maverick ring. Then, if I still do not have the energy to climb the stairs to the longarm (which is a high probability since I *am* sick, LOL) I start at Samantha-the-Fabri-holic's page and travel the Stash Quilt ring. It's so much fun to see what everyone else is working on. Maybe one of these days I'll get back to it...let's hope the decongestants work fast!

Storm at Sea

You may remember that one of my classes at Quilt Camp in the Pines was John Flynn's Storm at Sea. This is my version in traditional blues. He offered a pre-cut kit in batiks, but I am a glutton for punishment, so I cut my own pieces from his templates. As a result, I only made this one block in class and spent the rest of the day cutting about 400 little triangles. This block will end up on the back of the quilt, because I don't like the fabric my left hand is touching. I made a run to the LQS at lunch to get a variety of blues! You can't really use mediums in this pattern, except for the center squares. The triangles need to alternate light and dark to make the interesting secondary patterns, which I will point out sometime in the future when I pull out this UFO from the back of the closet!

I took the leap!!

I have been intrigued with Tonya's freehand letters for a while. This week she issued a challenge...start with X's and O's and make a charity quilt. Her directions are really good, and since they are FREE HAND letters, you can't make a mistake!! I have ideas bouncing around my head for several quilts with titles in the borders. I'd like to do a bargello in my school colors with the name in the border. I think my high school kids would enjoy that on display in the classroom.

At loose ends

Tony loved the package of baby clothes that my aunt sent us!

I am feeling very unsettled. School started this week, but I am home on maternity leave until the middle of October. We don't have a schedule, other than jumping up and getting a bottle when Baby K starts fussing. She has been delightful so far, just a couple of hours in the evening when she cries and wants to be held and walked around. B and I both came down with minor colds this week, which contributes to the desire to lay around and do nothing but read blogs! (Especially with daytime tv...800 channels and nothing on!)

I have lots of crafty projects that I could get started on...I am working on the September Strip Club quilt (BTW, I hate deadlines!) and I need to press the seams before sewing the horizontal rows together. Unfortunately, we put the playpen where the ironing board used to sit and I haven't had the energy to re-arrange furniture yet.

I could put bindings on the two quilts I showed you last week...the shapes for charity and the RW&B. But it's too hot to sit and do bindings!

I could start my quilt guild scrapbook...I was appointed historian about 18 months ago and the photos and papers have been sitting in my cupboard ever since! But, my friend is have a crop in September, so I'll wait and use all her fancy tools then.

Knitting...nah. There has to be something good on TV for me to sit and knit, and I am not into soap operas.

I am tempted by Tonya's challenge to make Xs and Os...maybe this afternoon I will go through my fabric stash and take the leap! Part of the challenge is to donate this quilt, so the charity kind of determines the fabric selections. RW&B can go to Quilts of Valor or something similar, pastels could go to a child-centered group like Project Linus, or I could just pick colors I like and plan to give it to the senior center that my longarm group is supporting this year.

Basically, I need to come up with a schedule for my time at home these next two months or I will go batty! Sitting around in my jammies until afternoon is fun for only a few days.

Next post...quilt blocks!

A New Beginning

This is how much of a log cabin baby blanket I was able to knit during an 11-hour labor and delivery! My adopted daughter Baby K made her entrance to the world at 12:52 pm last Friday. She is absolutely beautiful (of course!) and very sweet-tempered. So far she is sleeping so much that I haven't been able to take any pictures with her eyes open!

A long time coming

I finished this quilt as a charity project for my local guild. It will go into our "reserve" pile to be given to homeless children at some time in the future. The church where the guild meets houses homeless families for a week at a time every few months. In lieu of rental fees, our guild makes quilts for the families.

Usually, these quilts are made as "round robins." However, about a year ago (maybe 2!!) a quilt came back to my mom with the green and yellow as the backing for a red, white and blue top. We made the executive decision that we could find a better back for the original, and then turn that backing into another quilt. I added the machine-applique shapes, and the border, then did some free-form meandering loops on my longarm. I still need to do the binding, which will be the purple from the border.

I think this will be a great quilt to cheer up a child!

Winner!

I went on the Northern Arizona Shop Hop last month, and I was the winner of a fabulous gift basket from The Quilter's Store in Sedona. This book, 9-Patch Pizzazz, was included, as well as a coffee mug, notepad, journal and 28 fat quarters! I'll have to think up something special for the FQ's...maybe some paper pieced stars from Carol Doak. They are all batiks in lucious desert colors.

Happy Feet

Yay! I finished my first pair of socks!! They even match (insert oohs and ahhs). The picture on the left is trying to show the eyelet rib pattern, and the Dutch heel. I used a 3 needle bind off, but of course I forgot to turn the sock inside out, so there is a little ridge along the toe.

Next question...what kind of shoes would best showcase the handknit socks?? I'm thinking Keds, but what color? White or blue? My mom has suggested Birkenstocks :-)

I think I'll try Jaywalkers next...I'm addicted!

Seeing Stars

This was my first-ever class at Quilt Camp in the Pines - Sedona Stars with Marti Michell, 2004. Marti is a delightful teacher, and this was a very fun pattern. I chose red, white and blue fabric with the intention of sending the quilt to Operation Homefront, an organization that was giving away quilts to families of fallen soldiers. As a former Air Force officer, and a military brat, I have a soft spot for military charities!

When I came home from camp, I added a few more stars and pieced the top with red sashing. Then, this project went into the UFO bin. I thought about sending it out to be quilted, but then I decided to quilt it myself. I tried one other twin size quilt on my little Janome machine, and it about broke my back. (I get severe pain in my left shoulder after sewing for any length of time. I see a chiropractor regularly and try to stretch. )

But now, I have a longarm! I finally hada break between deadline projects, so I put this on and use a pantograph. That got it done in no time! I went to the LQS this morning to get material for binding (the same red as the sashing). Next I'll have to see if Operation Homefront is still accepting quilts...if not I have a couple other charities in mind.

I quilted this with red, white and blue varigated thread, which wasn't the best option. I love the look of varigated thread ON THE SPOOL, but I'm generally less than thrilled with the result. I have too many spots where the thread matches the background fabric, so you lose the quilting design. I need to order a thread color chart and start building my stash of thread so I don't have to trek an hour across town for each new quilt top!

Show and Tell

These are the blocks I made in Sharon Schamber's class, "New York Rising Sun." We used her "Piec-li-que" technique, which she also refers to as paperless paper piecing. It involves templates, starch and Elmer's Glue!

I love techniques that capture my imagination. I would love to do a rainbow version of this block, with a white background and each sun a different primary color. I have always been attracted to varigated quilts. In a book, I saw an attic windows pattern that used color gradients in the different blocks. It was just stunning! The best gradients I have seen are hand-dyes, but dyeing my own fabric doesn't appeal to me. So far, my frugal nature has kept those out of my stash and in the "someday" category.

Back to Sharon's class. I got to see her Best of Show quilt up close. Amazing! It was encouraging for me as a beginning longarmer to see that she used some basic quilting shapes to produce such spectacular results. She used pebbles in alot of areas and outlined her applique shapes. Oh, and then there were feathers. I am a bit intimidated by feathers. I bought some stencils to start practicing!

Mystery Revealed

This is Lyn Mann's mystery quilt from Quilt Camp in the Pines 2006. The class voted to name it "Twisted Violets." Lyn used purple in her sample and so did alot of the students! There are actually only 2 blocks in the whole quilt. I added two borders, and came home from camp with a FINISHED OBJECT. B. commented that I probably violated a whole bunch of quilty rules by doing that! I replied that it just moved into the Longarm UFO pile...

My Summer Vacation

I am leaving the heat of Phoenix tomorrow for the cool Pines of Flagstaff and Quilt Camp! The picture shows John Flynn's Storm at Sea, which is my Saturday class. I am also taking longarm quilting and paper piecing classes and a mystery quilt! I picked traditional blues for my Storm at Sea quilt.

There won't be any new posts until after I get back on the 24th, and then I am sure I will have plenty to share with you! Of course, I have stuff to show off now, but no time to run the phone line down the hall to the computer with the photo sharing software. So, just be patient and there will be lots of knitting and quilting photos in about 10 days. BTW...I am working on the leg of Sock #2, so I might have my first pair done by August, woo-hoo!

Microsoft Quilt Designs

This is the fern leaf I am currently putting in sashing pieces of my latest strip quilt. It's going much better on the longarm than with the mouse!! Although I wish I had used a different color thread, and I wish I had done a different design in the center squares. It looked ok on paper, but now the central design is too similar in scale to the fern leaf. Oh well, live and learn. Add to this the pressure that this is a sample for a class on Saturday...yikes!

When I get to the end, I will take a picture of the major disaster from yesterday...I basted the top too far away from the top leader, so when I got to the bottom, I ran out of backing! (I said a few bad words.) My brilliant fix was to baste as far as possible, unzip the top leader, un-pin everything else, and sew an additional strip to the back. That's where the sleve will go...yeah, yeah, that's the ticket!

Working on a holiday

These are the freehand designs I used in the border of my latest longarm project. It's a sample for the store featuring a center panel with large-print Amy Butler fabric. It was so much fun to work on! I outlined the leaves and flowers in the center, then in the border I used the blue wiggles and green leaves.

I don't have a real photo of the quilt because we reconfigured the computers as we cleaned out the house and worked on the nursery. The digital camera software is on my laptop, which has been moved to my craft room. Unfortunately, there is no internet access now! So, I am using B.'s computer to get on the internet, and playing with the Paint program in Windows. Actually, this could be a good deal...it's hard to get a nice picture of quilting to show up!

Happy Independence Day to all!

Silly Survey

I tagged myself with this meme from Red Shoe Ramblings: (I think the one-word answers are a rule. It's harder than it looks!)

1. Yourself: emerging
2. Your partner: asleep
3. Your hair: red
4. Your Mother: cheerful
5. Your Father: golfer
6. Your Favorite Item: books
7. Your dream last night: meetings
8. Your Favorite Drink: margarita
9. Your Dream Home: comfortable
10. The Room You Are In: loft
11. Your pleasure: reading
12. Your fear: spiders
13. Where you Want to be in Ten Years? teaching
14. Who you hung out with last night: Kesslers
15. What You're Not: sophisticated
16. Your Best Friends: understanding
17. One of Your Wish List Items: photo printer
18. Your Gender: woman
19. The Last Thing You Did: read blogs
20. What You Are Wearing: housedress
21. Your favorite weather: rain
22. Your Favorite Book? No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency
23. Last thing you ate? cheesecake
24. Your Life: full
25. Your mood: satisfied
26. The last person you talked to on the phone: Julie
27. Who are you thinking about right now? DebR

Big Spender

This is the crib we decided on, but ours is a darker wood finish. The store calls it "Cognac," and it matches our other furniture which is walnut. Fairly plain, but it suits us. I like the simple curves on the ends. We have a headboard to move up to in a few years (family heirloom) so we chose not to get the convertible style cribs, which to me, look too havy and massive for a baby's room.

We still need to find a dresser and a rocker we like, then the room will be decorated! Well, except for some pictures on the walls. The theme is "African Safari" since I found some fabric with giraffes, elephants, zebras, etc. The plan is to make a table cover for the desk we are using
asa changing table.

Happy Hearts

Time to spread some love...the universe needs some balance after that last post!

I made this in 2004...it was my third quilt ever, and the first one I quilted myself.

Darn Postal Workers!

I am anxiously waiting for 2 packages:

1) My One Skein Secret Pal yarn for June. This was not a partner swap, instead, person A sends to person B, who sends to person C, etc. I sent off a skein of Noro on about June 7th, plus some cards in the mail since then. My partner is a happy camper. However, the Golden Rule has not worked in my favor on this yet. Luckily (??) my partner is not-so-secret, and about 10 days ago I emailed her a nicely worded, "How's it going" note. She did write back saying life was crazy and my package would be on the way soon. Please, yarn swap fairy, speed up the mail routes so my yarn gets here this week!!! [ I know, swaps are a gamble, especially on the internet, so it's not a big deal if I don't get anything. But it does kinda feel like Valentine's Day in First Grade when everyone else has more Valentines in their pink paper covered shoe box!]

2) Wedding pictures from my best friend's son's wedding back in December. I ordered three prints online, oh, back in March I think. April rolled aorund, and I thought, hey, where are those prints? May rolled aorund, I came across the photographer's address and my invoice number, and I thought, I'll give them a call when school lets out and I have more time. June rolls around, and whaddaya know, I got a call from the photographer! She has my prints, but oh dear, I didn't include tax for the order, so could I please send them another check? [ helloooo, how about you get someone to help with your website to either A - accept credit card payments, or B - TELL ME TO INCLUDE TAX] So, I subdued my irritation and wrote a check for the tax ($1.22) plus, a few dollars for postage since she first asked me to pay for shipping then decided to eat that cost. (My mom's a small business owner...those little things add up!) Anyway, it's now been several weeks and NO PHOTOS. We're in the same suburban area, I get mail from across town in 4 days, tops. Time for another phone call.

3) And while I'm venting...I am supposed to have a light bar for my longarm! The dealer said a month ago that she'd set up delivery next week. I called her shop last week and they just got a new phone system and couldn't figure out how to transfer me to her extension so I was cut off - TWICE. grrrrrrr.

Sock Progress

You can kind of see the eyelet pattern in the photo. The leg is done and I have started the heel flap. You would think that k1, s1 would be easy, but I have noticed in jsut two rows that I like to k2 occasionally. OOPS. I have put other projects on hold while I get through this sock. I figure if I make one sock, then I know how to handle all the parts and then I can relax on the second one and bounce around among all my projects! (We're all unfaithful yarn harlots at heart!)


I *really* need to be sewing right now. I have the strips ready for the July Strip Club project at the shop, and only three weeks to get the top completed and quilted! In those same three weeks, I have to finish painting the nursery and get the house cleaned up for the nerve-wracking Home Study which will certify us to adopt. AAACK, where are the instructions for altering the time-space continuum? I just saw them in the pile on my desk...

Really, really, really good news from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church: we elected a FEMALE Presiding Bishop! Head Honcho for the whole American Church is a WOMAN! You go, girlfriend! I have to giggle...three years ago, the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay man as the Bishop of New Hampshire and the conservative branches of the church around the world had a fit. I bet they are really P.O'd now! Get over it, dude, it's the 21st century!

Progress

I talked to my mom at about 11am today and mentioned we were enjoying the World Cup. She was outraged! She thought we had too much to do getting ready for baby that we shouldn't be wasting time in front of the TV. Relax Mom, we'll be ready...by the time the child goes to college it will all be sorted out :-)

So, feeling rather industrious, we turned off the TV and trudged up to the extra bedroom/storage room/soon-to-be-nursery. It made me a little crazy to see all the mess we had to deal with, but B. convinced me his methods would work. These methods include piling every box in the center of the room (there were about 6 in the closet when we started) unpacking them all, and sorting, just like you see on Clean Sweep: keep, charity, and trash. In just three hours, voila! 2 boxes back in the closet, 2 in the garage and lots of stuff for charity and the trash.

This is a big deal, people of the internets...I have boxes that I have not unpacked in TEN YEARS because I cannot handle the mess and the inner turmoil of sorting out what bits to keep from my past! But, B. is ruthless and it must be done. The pregnancy is in week 32, which gives us about 6 weeks (we're hoping for an early delivery.) The race for organization is on! Say a prayer for the reformed packrats...