SEDUCED BY KNITTING

I tried to avoid the lure. I gave up all of my hobbies, just for quilting. But I have been seduced by the wonderful yarns at KNITPICKS I bought 3 hanks of yarn called Shimmer
I bought three because I couldn't decide what colors to buy, and when I saw the pattern for three scarves called ELIZABETH I I figured that I only needed one skein for each scarf, and they would be a small enough project that it wouldn't take up so much of my time.
The only thing that I'm not used to is trying to wind a ball from hanks of yarn. I don't have a swift or a ball winder.. both would be wonderful, but I don't know if I want the added expense for a part time hobby.. I managed to wind the whole ball and not get tangled until I was near the end. It was still irritating. But it was way easier to wind than the worsted weight wool I bought a few weeks ago!

Anyway, it is incredibly hot and humid here.. normal summer day. That's why I chose the autumn color yarn to start first because it reminds me of the lovely fall weather just around the corner. I can't wait!!

WEDNESDAY

It is hot and humid here. Outside it is mild and nice, but not nice enough to sleep. We had our windows open and fans going because I prefer fresh air to air conditioning. It gets cool at night. But it got to the point that by the time the cool night air cooled down the house, I had to get up again to go to work. I can not sleep well if I am too hot at night. I have enough problems with that because of raging hormones.. or non hormones.. whatever. So, when I got home from work yesterday, I closed up the house and turned on the blessed air.

I pretty much put summer last on my list of favorite seasons.. my favorites in order are, fall, winter, spring, summer. Pretty soon it will be cool again. I can't wait.

Nothing much going on here. I'm working on my project. and discovered that I would have to add another round of blocks (about 84) because when the blocks are sewn together, they will form a star pattern, and if I stop where I'd planned, that means that there will be half stars around the entire edge.

I ordered some lace yarn and a pattern for scarves from Knitpics. It was a pattern called Elizabeth.. I think.. based on lace patterns that were used by a queen..maybe it wasn't Liz.. I will have to look again.

BOOKSHELVES

We've been busy this weekend. Bill has taken out this window that faces a breezeway in our living room. He has finished the first of floor to ceiling bookshelves that will take up the entire wall. We get little light and no breeze from that window. And now that we have our new windows, we decided that bookshelves would be of more use.

I work every day on my new mini. I have about 320 blocks finished, with about 80 more to go. I am on the last round of blocks and I am getting excited to sew it all together. It is on my portable table top design board. I pin each block to the board as I go along. I choose the appropriate colors as I make each block so that the gradations of color will be the way I want. That's why I don't sew the rows together. I am doing the color from the center, out. So the last round is all of the blocks that will be on the outside edge of the center. The center 400 blocks will finish at 10". But I will wait until it is together to draft the border. I have some ideas for it, but, I will wait until I can look at several options.

And, I knew there was a reason that I didn't make those shades yet, when today, Becky from the about.com quilting forum mentioned pieced Roman Shades and a book, which I quickly put on hold at the library.
PIECED ROMAN SHADES Doing this might make the drudgery of making shades worthwhile.

That's about it. Long day at work tomorrow. I hope that all of you are well.

MY FRIEND SUSAN

I have a friend named Susan. For some reason she thinks I am easily irritated , and she likes me that way so she does stuff to exacerbate it. She is in charge of decorating a Christmas tree that is acutioned off for a local women's shelter. Every year, there is a theme, and our guild members make ornaments for the tree. There have been snowman years, "A quilters Christmas" year (my favorite) last year was postcards to Santa.. we put fabric postcards on the tree with a patchwork mailbox on the top. That is where her idea for "Christmas on Lake Erie" came about. No one but me is willing to tell her she's nuts. And when I'm the one to tell her that, it just encourages her. I told her that all you find on the shores of Lake Erie are dead fish, condoms, beer bottles, empty cans etc. I got this email from her today which cracked me up so much I had to share it with the world.

Guesswhatguesswhatguesswhat:
At the beach just now I found 8 condoms, 3 beer bottles (have to sand down edges of lip of one of them), 5 Pepsi liter bottles, and about 83% of a perch, I think, including one of the eyes, but Allen doesn't like it when I bring them home so I reluctantly left it. I'm going to fix them up cute with glitter and pipe cleaners and stuff.I can't wait for Christmas already! Shoot, I missed your birthday, right?Susan

WORKSHOP WITH THE SICILIANO'S

Just the second quilt from the left in the bottom row is a real quilt. The rest are printouts on paper of the same log cabin block in different colorways and settings.
George helping a student
I got two blocks finished during the workshop.. wonder how long until I finish the rest of the quilt?
This is after my guild meeting when everyone is looking at Virginia's award winning quilt. This quilt was on the cover of Quilter's newsletter magazine, and won 3rd place in a category at the AQS show one year.
This is one of my friend Nancy's blocks using a mirror for design possibilities..

We had a good day. Tomorrow is a log cabin design workshop

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Did you ever get to the halfway point (as if) in a project and suddenly think "What the heck was I thinking?" I reached that point last night in my current project. I love a challenge. This quilt has 400 1/2" blocks. The blocks are the same, the design is done with gradations. It's bright and pretty striking so far. But I have TWO HUNDRED blocks to go. That doesn't even include the prospective border.. which I will probably have to draft and make a pattern for if it is anything like the idea floating in my brain (what's left). Well, at least I have had the time to ponder the quilting.. and the batt. I don't know.. my last mini was a little too lofty. Personally, I think it was because of the amount of seams, but I want to do better this time. I am on a roll, and I am thinking of my next project to. As usual, I thought I would make this one first because I could get it out of the way quickly.. THREE WEEKS of daily work on it, doesn't make it look as quick as I thought.I guess I will shoot for the end of the summer. I am watching my Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, and I am up to the last disc of season three. I know.. a 50 something woman who loves Buffy. The show is just a fountain of dark humor. My cup of tea, so to speak. I love those kids.

One more day, and my beloved three day weekend. I have a great schedule. I had to fight to get it, but I just needed 3 days in a row off every week. After I was sick several years back, I decided I could live without the added stress that my job adds to my life. I love my work, but, I only work part time. I want to keep it that way. So I increased my hours to work in a shorter amount of time. So I get a break every week. I have learned that there is way more to life than work. I could drop over tomorrow, and they would go on without missing a beat. So I have to pay attention to what is important to me.

We are having a guild program and workshop with George Siciliano and his wife Virginia. http://www.georgesiciliano.com/page2.htm
He specializes in miniatures, and Virginia in traditional hand quilting. He is doing a workshop in paper piecing one of his log cabin miniature designs, and another workshop in designing log cabins. I hope that the people that signed up will enjoy these workshops. Several of the guild program people in the area are having trouble filling their workshops. Our guild will probably lose close to $1000. on this program, because not enough people signed up for the workshops to offset the cost of the speaker. Oh well, it's the chance I took. I try to find speakers that appeal to everyone. I could say that I maybe shouldn't have gone with someone that only does miniatures, but the other "normal" workshops only had maybe 5 people at the most in them. So at least I will have some fun and a very good student to teacher ratio in the 2 workshops I am taking this week. I'm sure I will learn something that I didn't know.

I hope that all of you have a great day!!

YAY! IT'S THURSDAY!!

It's Thursday. I have a 3 day weekend, and I am doing a happy dance!! Let's see, what have I been up to? I have to go to the library to return a book and pick up a book on CD called "Pirate" by Ted Bell. I hear it is good, so I will listen while I work on my project.. only 280 blocks to go. Which I can't believe I'm down that far. Being only 1/2" blocks.. it seems so small to already have 120 blocks finished. I am working on the orange to red section, next is the red to purple. I bet you're curious.. And to finish up my Pirate weekend, I will go see Pirates of the Caribbean-Dead Man's Chest

Just spyed a tattoo on my daughter while she was on her way out. I'm pretty disgusted, and in a way saddened. Now both of my daughters have done this to their beautiful bodies. You know, I am from a Navy family. A lot of the men had tattoos. I still hate tattoos. I remember when I was growing up how sorry my dad was that he ever got them. Back then they couldn't be removed. I know a lot of people are getting them now. And I had hoped that my daughters wouldn't be so influenced by today's, not always positive, cultural influences. They aren't like me in that respect. I never marched to the same drummer everyone else did. My friends would be "just doing it" and I wouldn't. And I am glad that I have a mind of my own. I also know that tastes change when you mature, and I can't imagine having something I liked when I was twenty permanently etched on my body. Oh well, both of my daughters will be 21 next month.. way out from under my thumb, even though I still keep a roof over their head and feed them. I guess I was deluded to think that they might actually respect my wishes and not do this.. at least while I was still supporting them.

I didn't post on Independence Day, but wanted you to see that I slaved over our fire ring and made ribs for the family. I used a CocaCola glaze. They were pretty good. Cooked over Cherrywood (the wood not the fabric) scraps. Luckily, it has been cool here, so the hot fire wasn't so terrible to have to work over.
A couple of days ago, I got out this 3 yard piece of Silk Jacquard and got around to dyeing it. I was going to dye it Blue/purple. But, when mixing the purple dye, I ran out of blue. So it is more red/blue. I could overdye it, but it isn't a big deal, I think it turned out well anyway.

That's about it. Nothing much going on here. I hope that you all have a good weekend!

ROMAN SHADES

I lucked out today. I bought the fabric to make Roman shades for my new front windows. I have had that for a couple of weeks. Today I went to JoAnns armed with a 40% and a 50% off coupon. I thought the 50% off coupon was for a 'sewing item' but when I got it out at the store I found it could also be used for a cut of fabric. I used it to buy insulated lining. I am going to end up being able to make shades for each of the 5 windows in my bow window for less than $100.00. The findings are the most expensive, so I will wait until I am finished sewing them all to get the pulleys and cord endings. I am going to try to find something else for the bottom weight bars. They want $15.00 each for the bars that come with the warm shade system.. a little too steep as far as I'm concerned. Or I will have to wait out a few weeks of 40% off coupons to get enough for all five windows.

Other than sewing shades, my weekend is going to be laundry and cleaning which took a back seat during my 2 week work stint.

I hope that everyone has a great Independance day weekend!