6,000 Words, or, Design Countertop Monday

First and foremost, I must brag about my MOTU, who brought me flowers (and tomato paste) from the grocery store yesterday.  You would not believe the fear and hatred he has for grocery stores, so this was (is) a big deal.  Aren't they purdy?  :-D

OK down to business. I got a couple of plastic containers this weekend in hopes of organizing my scraps a little better.  Before, everything was in the big clear/red thing (bottom) and that shoebox (top left).  Now, crumbs are in that shoebox and the smaller clear container (I'm still sorting, but the smaller ones are in the plastic one and the bigger crumbs that aren't quite scraps are in the shoebox).  The bigger plastic box now houses leftover blocks.  In order to qualify for entry into that box, there must be at least one other piece of fabric stitched to you.  You and your fabricky partner can be any shape or size, but you must be inseparable without a seam ripper. Yup, I personify everything.  I'm gonna lose it completely once MOTU leaves.

The design countertop!  All the blocks for Alishia's string quilt are done.  Now I just need some real space to lay them out in a design I like...anyone wanna loan me some floor/wall space?  Anyone?  Well, I've been doodling anyways, so hopefully I'll remember to take a picture of the design I came up with, tomorrow.

Here's the rest of the design space. There's Fencing Matilda, Mom Read Us Paddington (for lack of a better name), and Alishia's string quilt in pieces.  Yes, that's olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a variety of other cooking liquids behind the design counter.  That's the space that I cut both fabric and cooking stuff on.  Not at the same time, of course.  But you get the point.  This is getting pretty sad.

And finally, last but CERTAINLY not least, it was the best mail day ever!!!

Not only did I get the fabrics I bought for MOTU's and my new bed quilt in the mail, but I got the sweetest thank you cards from Kris (the mom) and Abbey (whose name I spelled wrong apparently lol).  Apparently Abbey sleeps with my quilt every night and just loves it!  :-)  Warm fuzzies all around!  

So that's the news from Lake Woebegone.  Tonight is Chuck night, and I'm kinda beat from the gym so there probably won't be any sewing going on.  I need to get started on the Wrapped in Hope quilt and get cracking on Mai's quilt too.  Next week will be so nice...I'll get home 20 minutes after I leave work and WON'T be exhausted!  Huzzah!

Design (Table) Monday

Here's what I've been working with:

You see the washer/dryer in the background there?  That's my ironing board.  No, it is not at all effective.  Especially not when the iron's steam feature goes haywire and sprays everywhere.  Nope.

Here's my "stash".  It's pretty sad, huh?  Sigh.

Here's a picture I like though.  Everything I completed this weekend, and a pair of socks.  They're clean, don't worry.

Tonight I'm stopping by my place to pick up more supplies and to see how many animals have collected in the ark of my basement.

Oh geez...I just got a call saying the company I'm about to work for just got acquired by another, bigger company this morning.  That's a new Monday low.  My boss-to-be says it's not anything I should be concerned about and that as far as he knows everything's still going as planned (as in, I still have a job there).  It looks like the new mother company has an opening for a tech writer anyways, so they're not overstaffed in that area, which is good.  Just gave me a little jolt given that I have fewer than 10 days left here...eep.

3 Finishes!!!

See what happens when my machine actually works??  Check these puppies out:

First up, three of my four Quilts for Kids:

That's (top to bottom) "The Robots Win", "Treasure Everywhere", and "Ninjas Kick Butt!"

The label close up of "The Robots Win".

Notice the top border?  I was using the backing as border fabric, got done with 3 sides, then realized there was not even close to enough to finish out the quilt...I was about 6 inches shy!  Fortunately, I had what you see of the green stuff from "Treasure Everywhere", so I ripped out everything back around to the top, added the green as the top border, continued along, and now I have about 18 inches of the red stuff left.  Oh well, you can't win them all.  :-)  I'm saving all my scraps from these to make some kind of "Scraps for Kids" quilt once I've got enough.  The mini pinwheel will definitely be part of it.

"Treasure Everywhere"

Label closeup for "Treasure Everywhere".  I think the picture above this is more representative of the actual colors in this. 

I always scoffed at my mom when she said "make sure you change your needle every time you hit a pin."  I was like "pshaw, who hits pins??"  I do, that's who.  Wowee.  This sucker snapped off, hit me in the cheek (I feel like I should be wearing safety goggles!), and landed on the quilt.  I had a heck of a time getting the basting pin off.  Can you see the hole the needle punched in it??  Yikes.  Needless to say, I changed my needle. 

Scariest part to me...washing everything.  I put it on the meanest cycle (hot/cold, longest wash) to make sure they could all take it.  They came out fine (see first picture).  Even the waves held up...phew!

Of course, Grisgris was helpful, as ever. 

And now...are you ready for this? 

Presenting, for the first time...ABBY'S ROAD!!!  

He was so much cuter on there like 5 seconds before, but the batteries died in my camera and MOTU was asleep so I couldn't ask where he'd put the spares.  Oh well, you get the idea.  He likes it, so it must be ok, right?  :-)

Here it is, folded with a glimpse of the backing fabric.  The whole thing feels so much friendlier now that it's washed.  This one, too, survived the wash (I held my breath all night lol).

And finally, the finished pile.  I'll be shipping everything either today or tomorrow, depending on how nasty the weather is...so far it's looking like it's gonna be tomorrow (it's pouring and in the mid-30's...blech).  That might change if I get cabin-crazy though lol.

In other news, if my count is correct, Abby's Road is finish number 9 for me...so this next finish is going to push me into double digits!!  I need to consider very carefully which one I finish next...I know it won't be the Paddington one because I don't have the backing material up here with me today.  It could be the fourth QFK, which I haven't started yet but have all day to do.  I also have supplies for Alishia's string quilt. And that's pretty much it. Hmm, so I guess it's the fourth QFK then, unless I drive home to raid more of my stash.  Man I can't wait to have my sewing stuff at MOTU's...

OH!  In other news, we've decided on a name for our puppy!  We're going to call her Zucchini...because that's the only thing we managed to keep alive in our garden last summer (it rained EVERY day last year, and MOTU's old roommate mowed the lawn directly into the garden...when it was seeding), and they were always bigger than we expected them to be.  We'll call her Kini for short.  :-D  MOTU's idea...I thought it was brilliant.  A pitbull named Zucchini.  I love it.

Saturday Pix

Let's see, where to start...

This is Shelby.  I caught her sifting through MOTU's underwear drawer while he wasn't looking.  Unfortunately, me raising the camera looked a lot like "come here, I'm going to pet you" to her.  She's only this friendly when MOTU isn't around (she's his) for a while, but is still home.  She HATES me when he's not here.  She's gonna hate me so much come October...sigh.

Where was MOTU?  In the master suite, preparing the floors.  I guess it's a little hard to tell, but they look SO different now.  He's going to finish up the edges tomorrow, then we'll lay down some varnish tomorrow afternoon.

What was I doing while he was working his cute lil buns off? I was working away at the stack of quilts I brought with me.  This one here is the pirates QFK.

I decided to get brave with this one...small success!  I made waves!  Please don't enlarge the picture...they're good from far but far from good.

Waves!  So many waves!  Again, don't enlarge.

I learned an important lesson here though...when they say "work from the middle", that includes blocks...I did the waves after I did the outlines, which lead to fabric mooshing.  Not good.

Grisgris was also busy, wondering what the heck was going on behind that curtain (and why I kept telling him not to go back there).

Here's what was going on behind that curtain.  Sorry for the awful quality...it was blurry without the flash, but so dusty that the flash picked up everything *but* the floor.  Sigh.

And, of course, the man of the house doing his man thing.

I also finished quilting the aliens vs robots QFK, but that was just ditches and diagonals...nothing exciting.  I'll post pix when they're both finished.  With any luck, I should be able to get Abby's Road quilted tomorrow (not sure what color thread to use...debating a veragated one (however you spell it), but I'd need to go get some new bobbins if I did that.  I have a blue/white, pink/white, and rainbow thread to choose from.  I'm thinking the rainbow one would stay with the crazy color theme, but maybe picking a neutral color would be better.  Maybe gray?  I'm just stitching in the ditch...nothing fancy.  Thoughts?

have box, will travel

what you're seeing is the makings for 4 quilts, crammed into a box so I don't have to watch tv all weekend. this is 2 QFK quilts and abby's road, basted, then a third QFK kit, and the completed QFK quilt. so I was wrong...5 quilts.

magical binding

I could bind this sucker 3 or 4 times over with what I prepared. oops. it looks like a magician's scarf trick :)

fnsi #1

the beginning state of me sewing room last night. these pix are gonna come one at a time, sorry

fnsi#4

he left and sulked on my bed for a while then wandered back in a while later

fnsi#7

laying out abby's road. this was like a modified sudoku quilt lol. trying to make sure none of the same fabric was adjacent or in the same row

fnsi#8

another kitty reality check

fnsi#9

hard to see I guess, but this is abby's road on my design wall.  The Princess of Quite A Lot panel is for Wrapped in Hope

fnsi#10

abby's road, top complete.  The dark patches are actually a deep purple fabric that I LOVE. 

fnsi#13

strips of leftovers for the binding on abby's road

fnsi#14

sorry it's sideways. one long, colorful strip of binding

fnsi#15

the backing material I found for abby's road...how perfect is it??? it turns out it's actually polyester though which I'm not crazy about. it's meant for scrubs though.

1:30 AM again???

Where DOES the time go???  I feel like I really haven't done anything tonight, too...I got all the pieces for Abby's quilt (I'm calling it "Abby's Road", hyuk hyuk) cut out, the first 7 strips sewn, and 4 strips sewn together...got some more fabrics washed and put away...that's really it.

Anyways, here's a recap of the day:

My dad got me this for Christmas.  That's right, it's a finger brace.  And it has a smiley face on it.  What? 

We got some snow today.  My car's the sad one still buried out there. 

This is my kitty.  He's special.

So special.

Here's the first few stacks of squares for Abby's Road, complete with kitty in my chair.

The final stacks all laid out.  The colors are a lot brighter than this gives them credit for I think.

And the progress.  As I said, 4 rows sewn together, 3 more waiting to be attached, about a billion squares still on the floor.

Should've done something on the QFK stuff I have, but I think that'll be Friday night.  My goal for Friday night is to get Abby's top completed, all three QFK tops completed (keeping in mind that I have one done already), and at least one QFK quilted, hopefully all three.  I'm forbidding myself from doing any work on Alishia or Mai's quilts until the QFKs are done.  Oh, I also got a great little panel for the Wrapped in Hope quilt, which is washed and ready to be played with as well...but I need to start finishing stuff I've started.  Seriously, I'm starting to see how UFOs accumulate...I have 5 projects with measurable progress made on them right now, and I'm plum out of room on my wall for hanging stuff up.  No bueno.

Class tomorrow night (Stats II, yay.) then La Carreta with MOTU (Master of the Universe, as Nick is prone to calling himself...maybe that'll be his new moniker on here).  La Carreta is our favorite Mexican place, so I guess that means I'm running in the morning.  I also have a training thing to listen in on all morning.  That's in 7 hours.  Crud, I should probably sleep, huh?

Night all!



PS feel free to leave comments!  I love knowing I'm not just talking in the wind here!  :-)