Fleece frenzy

I went to JoAnn's yesterday for a spool of thread (just thread!), and well, their fleece was on sale. So was a bunch of other stuff, and I came away laden with bags of more things (dare I say crap?) I really didn't need.

I have had a love/hate relationship with JoAnn ever since she expanded and exposed me to several other crafts I really had no business getting into with an apartment the size of mine (Fimo, for example). I was a knitter before I was a quilter, so I was happy about her yarn selection, but do I really need a pasta machine exclusively for rolling polymer clay? I think she and her brother Michael are conspiring to suck the disposable income from people like me who have an incredibly low resistance to anything even remotely cute and creative.

And yes, I believe that, in order to complete any successful clay project, one does, in fact, need a pasta machine. I'm such a sucker.

Fleecy goodness!

My neighbors have been keeping my plants alive during my many vacations this summer, and I thought blankies for a busy mom of two would be a nice treat. I had bought them Mackinac Island fudge in August but ended up eating it out of frustration during a construction jam in Indiana on the return trip. So this is Plan B:

Gratuitous shot of Archie

I spent more time on this than I intended, so the second is still under construction. If I get home from work early enough today (say, before 8pm -- it is Monday, after all), I can probably finish it up and get back to my homespuns!

Only 90 days 'til Christmas...

I don't even remember whose blog I read that directed me to this site, but I do remember leaving a comment that I may never forgive her for doing so!

I'd never worked with homespuns before, but I saw these and immediately thought of a special someone (who may or may not be checking in here to see what I'm up to and therefore shall remain unidentifiable) who might just fit nicely under a nice flannel throw by the fire this holiday season. So I thought what the heck, I'll try something new, and ordered every blue plaid flannel they had.

Flannel homespuns...can't you just smell the chestnuts roasting?

Initially, I wanted to do a rag quilt, but then I found this pattern (from this book, which is hard to say three times fast but has some good patterns in it). So I loaded up on muslin at the Ice House, and they even dug around in the back room to find me some long-forgotten gray-blue plaid flannel for the backing (at 75% off -- woo-woo!), and I'm good to go!

From "40 Fabulous Quick-Cut Quilts" by Evelyn Sloppy,
whose work, anyway, is actually quite neat

I am, however, finding cutting plaids to be a little challenging. I've complained about pre-washing taking up time, and ironing (thinking ahead, though, I was pretty careful not to distort these so cutting wouldn't be a total nightmare) -- but not being able to stack these babies and produce five or six strips with one slash of the rotary cutter? Ack! It's messing with my quilting mojo!

I suppose I could layer them and cut without regard to the plaid, but I'd be even more frustrated if the lines were crooked (see? I can be a perfectionist when it's called for!). So I'm gutting it out (poor, poor Kate, so eager to put the foot to the floor) and slicing my strips from each individual fat quarter with such accuracy it hurts.

Patience. I am taking a really deep breath and exercising patience.

I hate triangles!

Two easy-to-take-along Christmas gift WIPs got resurrected to go on vacation with me last week. Yes, I took my machine along, the bathroom up at the house needed new curtains. What better excuse did I need?

I'd started the flannel Flying Geese blocks last winter and got distracted (who, me?) by many other projects, and the Zig Zag blocks have been begging for attention ever since being abandoned in favor of that sparkly new jelly roll. Time to get back to them so I don't create my typical week-before-Christmas-sewing-marathon panic!

With six days in the crisp north woods ahead of me, I thought I could just crank these things out in no time and be on to my next project (purchased, of course, at my favorite Ice House Quilt Shop just down the road), but I got mired in Triangle Hell. The individual units went together beautifully (or so I thought...), but when it came time to put the four pieces together -- ugh! The points are all over the place! Despite all my efforts to sew a perfect quarter-inch seam and stitch very carefully through the seam intersection at the top, I came up with a new rule: if I can't get it right after ripping it out twice, well then, it just has to be GOOD ENOUGH.

The best of my so-so blocks is only so-so

I'm sure there are many perfectionists out there grasping for their seam rippers and gasping at the horror of a leaving a blunted end unresolved, and up until last Wednesday night I might have been one of them...but here's the reality of it all: I know for a fact that the recipient of this quilt will not give a rat's you-know-what about whether the pinwheel points are blunt or floating, and will just be happy to have a warm and cuddly handmade gift under the tree (or in the mail -- not giving any clues away here, friends) to use throughout many winters ahead.

It's not being entered in any competition, and nobody will be judging my handiwork. And if they do, so be it...I can take it. That is not to say that I don't take pride in my work (I'm half German, half Austrian, so anal-compulsiveness is woven tightly into every strand of my DNA, been battling against it for decades now) -- it's just that in order to maximize my time, save thread, and preserve my sanity, in this particular case, I am learning to Just. Let. Go.

The Zig Zag presents its own little problems, mainly bulky seams. I expect that with the flannel, but didn't think it would be as much of an issue with these. Again, points mismatched to the point of shame, but here's the start:

Sorry, no iron on vacation!

Any tips? Suggestions? The flannel blocks are done and I have made my peace (or piece!) with them, but I have about 745 more of these little babies to go. OK, 245...it just seems like a lot more.

An age-old question is answered...

Maybe it was just the nostalgia. But it tastes just like I remember, only with bubbles!

Back up north

A morning visitor

How big's a cubit?

Well, I was wrong: driving conditions weren't any better on Sunday. Lots of rain, lots of flooded roads...but not much traffic.

An angry Lake Michigan

At least the rain stopped at some point last night. Then started up again this morning. Maybe by the time I get back home the water in my basement will have receded, I'm sure it's flooded.

Good thoughts go out to Texas this morning, and to anyone else affected by Ike's ire.

When inspiration hits...

...you just gotta roll with the punches!

I had a list of about twelve things I had to do today before I packed everything up and headed to Michigan for the week, but woke up to a hard, steady rain that had been falling all night -- hardly beach weather. It wasn't showing any signs of stopping (and hasn't, yet -- I think this is leftovers of Hannah, maybe, or a precursor of Ike cruising up the Mississippi into the midwest, but it's been raining all frigging day), and Archie wasn't feeling all that great after yesterday's trip to the vet for his booster shot, so the list went out the window. Salvation Army can live without all my old dress-nice-for-work clothes for another week; Bed, Bath & Beyond isn't running out of picture frames any time soon; and the beach house (a wonderful escape when the weather's nice but a little depressing when it's pouring out) certainly isn't going anywhere. Hoping for improved driving conditions tomorrow may be just wishful thinking, but that's what I'm banking on.

So instead of packing, I made a big cup of coffee and confronted a stack of fabric that had absolutely nothing to do with anything I've been working on (go figure), grabbed the rotary cutter, and came up with this:


I really like the look of Denyse Schmidt quilts, and I'd been wanting to do a Hop, Skip & A Jump-like project since I bought her book a while back, and, well, today was apparently the day. I didn't have the patience to actually cut out all her template pieces and instead chose to cut random-width strips of the colored fabric and sew them to random-width strips of Kona Snow and get crooked from there. More of a "Hop, Skip & A Little Shuffle."

Love, love LOVE yellow and pink together!

I can go pack now.

One of the advantages...

When you live alone, you can make just this for a meal and nobody says "What do you mean 'there's no meat in here?'"

Balsamic vinegar, basil, sea salt, grape tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. Yum!

That, and you can make it every night if you want.

The eyes have (had) it...

I have come to the conclusion that I can't sew a straight line without (ugh!) reading glasses.

Which is rather humbling, seeing as I already wear glasses -- have since first grade. Without them, I'm pretty much legally blind, as illustrated by the alarm clock I have with the REALLY BIG numbers that are so bright that if I turn over toward it in my sleep, the glow wakes me up. But at least I can see what time it is from more than six inches away. Zheesh.

I caved and got bifocal contacts earlier this year (kind of cool, even though they took some time to adjust to), but sewing with those has proven to be even more hazardous to my seams. I'm sure it's a function of age, and working on a computer for 10+ hours a day for oh, 25 years, but still...

Evidence of this affliction is showing up on this quilt. I had so many issues with the piecing, it's no surprise that the quilting is also challenging me, simple as it is (meaning I'm too stubborn to admit that just wearing the stupid $3 glasses along with my own would make steering infinitely easier). I wonder what problems the binding will pose...


All that aside, I'm in LOVE with this multi-colored thread. The strong primary colors really stand out on the white. I'm hoping in the end, all the problems I've had with this project won't matter because it's just really cute!

And from now on, it looks like I'll be rockin' the glasses-over-glasses look if I want my stitches straight.



P.S. Resizing picture conundrum resolved! If you rearrange any photos within the editing window, it breaks the link with the original photo...which is why some pictures will magnify and others won't. I'll stop doing that, but it's a hard habit to break (I rearrange my furniture a lot, too). Mystery solved!

Everybody's a critic

The Safari blocks are taking shape, though not the Bento Box pattern I originally intended. Those looked too busy, and for some reason just rotating them seemed to calm it down a bit and let it get a little more whimsical. It's still pretty loud, but taking shape:

No sooner had I repositioned these blocks when Archie weighed in with an alternative arrangement, which leaves me seriously questioning his design skills...


I appreciate the suggestion, but I think I'll stick with my original layout.

Back on safari...

I had lots of leftovers from the Silly Safari jelly roll, so started putting these together this morning. Not sure how I feel about them -- they're busy even for me! Maybe some sashing, or maybe just pillows to go with the quilt. I wanted to do a Bento Box with the batiks I just bought, so I figured these were a good warm-up and I was using up scraps in the process. A two-fer!

It always feels so darn good after a long week at work (even though it was a short one) to sleep in on a Saturday morning (the cat even waited until after 8am to start licking my ears), wake up, turn on NPR, brew a couple shots of espresso (kept far away from my sewing table -- learned that one the hard way) and dive into a project. Sewing: best therapy there is!

And speaking of the cat, we're winding up Week Two together. I know he's still pretty young, at eighteen months, but after dealing with a geriatric cat for the past several years, I was in no way prepared for Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde kitten behavior. By day, he's tearing around my condo like his tail's on fire, jumping up on anything that doesn't move, and attacking anything that does (this includes me -- he's had a lot of time-outs in the half-bath). By night, he's the happiest, most wonderful little cuddler, snuggling into my side and purring himself into a deep, deep sleep -- apparently storing up the crapload of energy he unleashes every day when the sun comes up. But we're dealing, and have high hopes for a future of compatability and serenity. At least I do.

His name, I've decided, is Archie.

Archie at play. He later attacked the camera.

Archie at rest, smiling in his sleep.

Saying goodbye to summer...

Labor Day sunset at North Beach (South Haven, MI)

Hard to believe that another summer's come and gone, but the season departed from the beaches of western Michigan with a weekend of truly incredible weather: not a cloud in the sky, mid-eighties, with a light breeze...everything would have been perfect had the air conditioning not quit here at the beach house yesterday afternoon, which made today pretty miserable -- inside, anyway. Let's just say the cat wasn't very happy; I, on the other hand, was enjoying my book (Eat, Pray, Love -- perfect long weekend reading) on the deck, basking in bad-for-me sunlight (rationalized by a recently discovered Vitamin D deficiency) and thoroughly enjoying the feel of something other than a desk chair under my behind.

And -- drum roll, please -- I dropped the 60th Anniversary quilt top off with the longarm lady this morning, and my elation is indescribable! The dark cloud of guilt that hovered over every project I worked on over the past year that wasn't this quilt (and if you read my earlier posts, there were several of those) has finally lifted, and my creative license has been renewed.

Anybody have any idea how long creative licenses are good for?