Another addiction....

Hi, all!

Well, I took my first beading class last week and I’m looking for trouble! ;-) It was a pretty basic class, but it taught me enough to be dangerous. Like I need one more expensive hobby! :-p Sunday I made a badge lanyard out of some beads and links I got on Mother’s Day at Shipwreck Beads... I’m REALLY digging these beads!!! I done good! I should have – I was putzing around the store trying to decide long enough! I’d find a focal bead I’d like, and then I couldn’t find the right accent beads. Ugh! Last night I took apart one of the bracelets we made in class and turned it into a watch band, and strung a freshwater pearl necklace to wear to our niece’s wedding in a couple weeks. I’m going to make a bracelet to match (and earrings if I get inspired), but I haven’t gotten there yet. I also don’t have the clasps I want (mail order), so I get to procrastinate a little longer. I have another class tomorrow, and several more classes over the next several weeks. WHOOPS! ***Breaking News*** I don’t have a class tomorrow! They just called to let me know that they have to cancel it because they don’t have enough people. :-( I guess I’ll just have to bead at home, then. Or watch the Mariners game. Or sleep. Sleep..... great segue....

I’m still doing the vanpool (4^th week this week). I had to drive two days last week because of appointments, but I was still able to get out of bed at that awful hour known as the time between 5am and 5:30am. Ick! This morning was a ROUGH morning... ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................................

This is the week I get my hair cut! Hair today, gone tomorrow! Okay, gone Friday. :-p I managed to not tear it all out or chop it off myself. Hopefully the next three days will go as well. ;-) Mom volunteered to FlowBee it for me, but I declined. I did let her near me once with that thing and I lived to tell about it, but I’m thinking I’m going for the scissors this time. :-p

In quilting news.... nothing. ;-) Sometime between now and June 5, I need to prep for my Girls Night Out with Roxanne Carter. I’ve been taking the same project (and not working on it any other time except cutting and other prep work) so at least I have that spot of time I’m using for that. I’d love to take something I need “help” with to take advantage of the genius tutelage available to me, but I can’t think that hard. WHOOPS! Classes are dropping like flies! It’s looking like I scheduled a medical appointment for my Girls Night Out day! WHAT was I thinking????? I guess I’ll have to call and sign up for GNO in July instead. DOH!

Aren’t you so excited that you can experience life with me, as it happens, moment by moment?

There’s my check-in... next time you hear from me, it’s pretty likely I’ll have new hair! Okay, the hair won’t be new, but the style will be. :-p

Blessings!

Kristin

This and that and a couple of pictures

Hi, all!!
Thanks again to all who voted on my new hairstyle... I go under the shears on May 23rd and we'll all be surprised by the outcome, I'm sure! :-)

In other news, on April 27th we took a tiptoe through the tulips in LaConnor, WA. I have some pictures, but Kelli has a lot :-) and I'm really chomping at the bit to see what she has. It only rained on us a little, and we had a lot of fun watching Kelli's son George romp in the mud. The close-up of the orange one is my favorite... at full size, you can even see waterdrops! :-)




Let's see.... what else is new? April 26th at sew Saturday I made three reusable grocery bags! Yay, me! :-) I was going to use some old sheets that were in the donate pile, but one my my fellow quilters had dropped off some fabric for us to consume as we saw fit, and some of it was food-themed and of a sufficient amount to work for the bags. How cool is that? So I still have more to make, but I've gotten started, anyway. Interesting thing... Bill took them to the grocery store yesterday, and the checker / bagger said that there's a bill going through King County that would charge customers 25 cents per bag to provide them with plastic bags at checkout. Ikea was the first I knew of to do this (a nickel a bag) and I've known other places that used to give a discount if you brought your own bags. That explains why so many stores recently have been selling reusable bags for $1 each... Too bad I don't have the fabric, skill, or motivation to make something worth selling. :-)

And, the most shocking news of the month.... I joined a vanpool. Okay, that's not terribly shocking until I tell you that the vanpool leaves the Park and Ride at 6:15am. Keeping in mind that my alarm used to go off at 6:30 and I crawled out of bed about 8am, this is quite the paradigm shift (without a clutch!). I barely slept the first night because I was so paranoid about missing the van and would everybody like me... almost as bad as the first day of school. So far I've been able to get up and out, and the "missing the van" anxiety dreams are subsiding.

I think that's all the news for now...

Toodles!
Kristin

The Latest and Greatest

Between being busy and being sick (with some overlap, ugh), I haven’t had a chance to say hello lately. We’ll see how far I can get in this sitting.

First, I got nailed with allergies or a cold or something a couple weeks ago. I’m still hanging on to a cough, but at least I feel like my head is still attached to my body. I missed some work because I couldn’t think and felt icky. I’m glad it happened the week it did and not the week after because I have been busy at work this week. Truth be known, a couple of my partial work days were partial work days because I had stuff that I HAD to do and I can’t work from home. So, I went to work, did what I needed to, garnered some sympathy with my Talullah Bankhead voice and lung-shaking cough, and home I went. All in all, a good use of time in my opinion. :-) Also in the coughing and needing of rest I went to a Girl’s Night Out with Roxanne Carter. She hosts open sew time where quilters get together and work on whatever project we like, and she’s there for consultation and advice. Don’t have anything to work on? She’s working on a Block of the Month for a lap quilt. Bring some fabric and she’ll provide the directions! It was a little advanced for me and I have enough projects that are partially done. So what did I take? A new project! LOL! I’ve had some Robyn Pandolph fabric for a few years that I’ve been wanting to make something with, but I couldn’t find anything that wouldn’t detract from the fabrics. So, I’m going with a variation of a Disappearing Nine Patch. The variation is that instead of keeping the block together and just rotating two parts of it, I’m mixing up all my little pieces. I have about 20 different fabrics from the same line and I want to spread them out a bit.

In other quilty news... remember that Washington State Round Robin Quilt that I contributed to (see QA Quilt Show)? Well... drum roll please.... it took FIRST PLACE in its category (Large - Duet/Group)! Wendy has a blue ribbon now!! Aren’t we cool?? LOL! I think no one was more surprised than her. She’s been having allergy head, so she wasn’t even going to go to the awards this week. Isn’t she glad she did?!? She thought the other quilt she entered (different category) had a fair chance, and when that didn’t win, she figured she was done. And then Roxanne Carter got an Honorable Mention in the Duet/Group category, so Wendy REALLY thought she had no chance! QA hasn’t posted pictures of the winning entries yet, but when they do, they’ll be around the QA site somewhere.

So I think the other news I have to share this time is that I’m going to be donating my lovely ~*~naturally curly hair~*~ to charity in the next month or so. I’m not doing enough with it to enjoy it, and even though short hair is higher maintenance because of the curls, it’s easier to wash and comb and doesn’t immobilize my head when my sweet husband puts his arm around me. :-) I finally have him convinced that short hair is okay. And it’s not like it won’t ever grow back. The only drawback is that when it’s been this long in the past, it’s never had the pretty curls it does now. I might have nightmare hair next time I go to grow it out! LOL!!! I’ve been playing with a put-a-hairstyle-on-your-photo website and may put some pictures up for voting once I get them narrowed down. Then I’ll get to see if anyone is actually reading this! ;-)

That’s all for now... thanks for stopping by!

You know you're a quilter if....

Well, I get some sewing in this weekend (YAY!). I decided to put a few quilts in my guild’s show that’s coming up next week. I usually don’t because (a) I don’t generally have anything around home that I’ve actually completed, and (b) I am usually not able to help out since it’s a one-day show on a weekday in a different county, and I hate to just have them display my stuff without contributing to the show. However, I got an email last week looking for more quilts. So I decided on my mystery quilt (previously shown, [picture below), the quilt I made for my Mom (picture below), and a Quilt Pink quilt I bought last year. I didn’t make it, but it’s a nice story and for a good cause, and it’s in my possession. ;-) I asked Mom if I could borrow her quilt for the show, and she was more than happy to oblige. She’s so excited that I get to be in a show. ;-)

The mystery quilt had a permanent sleeve, so I only had to make two sleeves. I got them made and one sewn on yesterday. This was around spending the better part of two hours pressing fabric that I washed for the baby quilt Mom and I are making. Yes, my back hurt. ;-) I was doing the hand-sewing while we were playing cards. I still have one more sleeve to hand sew on (but at least the sleeve is made)... have I mentioned how I hate hand sewing?????

Thursday I have a “Girl’s Night Out” sew time, and I have to get some fabric pressed and cut for that, and I’ll probably take the Janome because I want to do the whole project on one machine (I have a cheaper machine that I take to sew days to cut down on the computerized innards getting jostled around). My Janome and I got along quite well on Sunday, so that’s good news. I haven’t tried anything fancier than a straight stitch and winding a few bobbins, but I was successful at those, so that helped. I also love my new sewing cabinet insert – I’ve never been able to sew flush before! I’m really looking forward to doing a larger project to see how it works with that. I also was able to do a “proof of concept” of my sewing room. The lighting is awful (which I knew). I’m waiting until I’m sure on how I want things arranged before we start installing track lighting. I also had Mom sewing with me, so I got to try out more than one person in the room plus having the ironing board and cutting table set up. Needs a little more thought, but we’re making progress.

Oh, speaking of ironing boards... you know you’re a quilter when you go to Costco and your impulse purchase is an ironing board! :-p I didn’t actually buy it, but I was CLOSE! I have a spiffy space-age cover thing for the one I have now that I don’t think would fit on the new one (which is bigger), but it would be great to have a bigger board... still thinking.

That’s all the rambling I have for now... tasks for the week – a sleeve and pressing and cutting for the sew party on Thursday night! WOO HOO!!!

Easter

We had our first overnight guests (my parents) this weekend. :-) Mom and David came up Saturday and Mom and I went to sew day and Bill and David hung ceiling fixtures (bless their hearts!).

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, I came to the realization that this would be the first time since 1995 that I've spent Easter with my Mom and stepfather. (For those of you who don't know, I moved from NY to WA in 1996 and Mom and David moved from NY to WA in 2007.) I was glad that didn't set the bar too high on the expectation scale. I've gotten to a point in my life where I'd rather spend time with guests (particularly family) than to fuss over a dinner that will (hopefully) really impress them. Nevertheless, we got out the china (which Bill and I would have done even if we hadn't had guests) , and used Grandma's silver that I received after she passed away.

There was no real fanfare on Sunday - Bill and I went to church, and when we got home the four of us played cards for a while, Mom and I did a couple light sewing projects (thanks for the fingertip towels!) while Bill called his family. We had a dinner of pork chops and some sides, and later a pumpkin pie Mom had made for dessert. It was really nice to kick back and have so much of the day to just hang out and enjoy the family time. Sure, we do that now and then anyway, but still... there's that holiday factor. :-) We had a lot of laughs and just a great time together.

Just wanted to share how wonderful it was to have a family Easter and christen the china.

Sew Saturday!

Once a month, my quilt guild has an open sew on a Saturday. It's a great time to get to know people a little better and see what everyone is working on. This time I think I did more ripping than sewing - but that was the plan. ;-)

First, I made my three tissue box covers that I wanted to - two floral and one with pandas (I have a half-room that's a panda palace). The two in front (shamrocks and love) Mom made for me - the other 5 I've done (with her help, of course, since I never write down ANY instructions).

After that, I was ripping some 12x12 blocks so I would have some 6x12 pieces, plus sewing a couple 6x6 blocks together. I'm planning on making reusable grocery bags with those if I can get my serger to be a dove and cooperate. Lastly, I continued ripping some appliqué out of the Round Robin I received. Thank goodness it wasn't a satin stitch, but it was some reverse zigzag that was really a challenge in some places. There were four small motifs and I probably spent 2 hours on each one. Actually, that's not true. Mom ripped out one of them for me, so I only have about 6 hours invested. But they're GONE! There's still some residue from the fusible web and of course the needlemarks, but they're gone. Now (are you ready for this) I'd really like to rework the center block - the one I did - because it doesn't make sense to me with the rest of the quilt! It's an easy fix (just flipping a couple things around), but it is in the center of a king-size quilt top. My friend Wendy says that she can show me how to rip the quilt into four parts and sew it all back so I don't have to do inset seams. We're going to try it on something smaller first to see how badly I really want to do this. ;-)

Here's a photo of the quilt with everyone (minus one) who worked on it. It's pretty much symmetrical, so you can derive what the whole quilt looks like by what you can see. I thought I had a picture handy of just the quilt, but I can't find it.


Okay, I think that's all the news for now. :-) Just wanted to report that I actually got to move something from my "In work" list to my "Projects completed in 2008" list! YAY! Let's hear the roar of applause for the three more tissue box covers!!! (Hey, you have to celebrate each victory, right?)

QA Quilt Show and other inspirations

Saturday we went to the Quilters Anonymous quilt show for two reasons:
1. Because we could
2. Because my name was in the program
Having said that, I'm pretty happy with what II worked on a Round Robin quilt a couple years ago, and the owner got it quilted and bound and it was on display! WOO HOO!!! It was really cool to see it hanging - I'd only ever seen it completed laying on the floor. I did the orca scene, the vertical columns with the daffodils and tulips, and then the three clusters on the top (grapes, cherries and berries, lilacs). The theme was the natural beauty of Washington State. She even quilted the names of all 39 counties into the quilt!

There's a label on the back with a picture of the finished top and everyone who worked on it.

Everyone did an amazing job, and I really feel like I was the least talented of this group. Having said that, I'm actually pretty pleased with most of the work I did on this quilt - especially the orcas!!! ;-)



I also got some photos to keep for inspiration for other quilts, and stuff that was just darn cool. Like I need more "ideas." One thing I saw that I may do is a Log Cabin block with animal prints... I've got a bunch of animal prints that I've been trying to figure out a layout for for over 3 years!


I also have wanted to do a black and white, and though the one I saw there wasn't terribly inspiring (well done, but I'm not going to do a Trip Around the World), I did get an idea later that has already morphed into another idea. AND... there were a couple Convergence quilts there. I did a class on that about, oh, 4 years ago and still have the pieces. I didn't know what I was going to do for it because I was making a wall hanging for someone who is no longer in my life (and he picked out the fabrics). But maybe I'll finish it up and do some appliqué on it to mix the media a little bit. I'll have to look to see how far I got and what the fabrics looks like (since the only thing I've done with it in four years is move it twice).

So, again, more projects than motivation, but at least a couple of them are small so I don't feel like I have to finish this whole big thing. I got the embroidered blocks back from Mom Saturday, but haven't taken pictures yet. We've agreed on sashing color and style, so I'll be able to start that soon, too. YAY! There's a guild sew day this Saturday, and then I'm having a friend over to sew on Sunday the 30th, so I'll have at least those two days for people to keep me on task. :-)

Well, I think that's all the excitement for now. I have a sew day on Saturday, so I'll hopefully have something to report after that. :-)