New Projects

Thanks to everyone for their compliments on my crazy quilt. I've hung it on a wall in the entry to my house, so people can see it through the window as they stand at the front door. It's 26x26 inches, and I do find myself referring to it for ideas as I work on the block in Sharon B's crazy quilt class.

Here are some projects I'm currently working on. This is a block for a pink and green quilt I'm making for myself. I was inspired by this fabric with cakes on it. and I'm making some blocks as well as a border with this fabric. The other fabrics are various pink, green and white fabrics. The effect is very light and cheerful.



I'm also knitting this scarf from some alpaca I'd been visiting at the local yarn shop until it went on sale. It's a pretty easy pattern and alpaca is so soft it's wonderful to knit with. It is slippery, so I'm knitting it on bamboo needles, which are my favorite anyway. I like the light weight of bamboo, and metal needles feel heavy by comparison.


I have had some good finds lately at the thrift store. I recently found a lot of crochet cottons in different weights that I am using in my crazy quilts. As you can see I have enough to last several lifetimes, so if you'd like some lengths of random colors, don't be shy, send me an email.


Yesterday, I snagged this partially-embroidered kit for fifty cents. I think I'm developing a thing for Holly Hobby. She was very popular in the 70s when I was in highschool, and when I see Holly Hobby things, they always attract my attention. For now, I'm finishing this panel, which I hope to use with some pre-cut rectangles of Holly fabric that I've got stashed away. Of course the fabric is in brown and orange.


Speaking of brown and orange, this is a new cat who has come to live with us. I'm calling her Lucy for the moment, after Lucille Ball, since she's a strawberry blonde. (She also coordinates nicely with the rugs, as you can see.) We're not real sure, however that she's a she, so this is a provisional name and subject to change. In the meantime, she's got a lovely personality and gets along fine with cats 1-3. My daughter and I have an understanding that you can have up to five cats before you hit Crazy Cat Lady status, so we're still one under the limit.

Ta-Dah!

I finished my CQ project inspired by Sharon's 100 details series. It was a fun project, and I enjoyed trying out different embellishment techniques and basically experimenting with how much embellishment a piece of fabric will bear. The other good thing about CQ is that it entitles you to be in a continuous collecting mode. I'm now on a perpetual search for interesting buttons and threads. I've also collected a few interesting neckties to use in the sample for Sharon's on-line CQ class.

I'll hang this one on the wall, as I don't have a baby grand piano to drape it on. It would be nice on a small table, but the cats would think it's a new platform for them to lay on and survey their domain.

Things are good on the home front. Alex is working and going to school and singing with his band. Allie has just been offered a full-time (but temporary) job doing data entry. She is interested in doing office work so this is her chance to try it out and see if going to college isn't such a bad idea after all. I'm waiting to get my car fixed, working on my Japanese ladies quilt, and I've collected fabric for a new quilt I want to make as a birthday gift for myself. It's pink and green. I'll post pictures of the fabric as soon as I get my camera back from Allie. Everytime I go to use it I have to ask her for it back.

This and That

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted, but right now I'm between work-related shit-storms, so I've been able to take a breath, do some creative work, and catch up with myself.

Awhile back I knitted ipod "sweaters" for my daughter Allie, her boyfriend Roger, and for one of Allie's teachers. A couple of her friends recently asked if I would make them ipod sweaters too, so last weekend I whipped out two new ones for them.


This is brainless straight knitting, but the fun part is using up scraps (my true passion) and inventing a tiny thing that kind of looks like a sweater. Stripes are fun, but I also used some acrylic mohair to imitate a fuzzy sweater. The girls were really cute when they asked if they could pay me to make these for them. I said, "oh, that's okay, it only takes 20 minutes," which is not quite true, but it's fun anyway.

I finished sewing together the crazy quilt blocks I made when I cleaned out my scrap drawer. The scraps included the leftover pieces of that Alexander Henry fabric "Las Senoritas." The women look like they're peeking out from the blocks in a flirtatious way, so I've named this quilt "Las Coquetas" (the coquettes). It's 62x62 and it'll either be a lap quilt or a large tablecloth.



I had these blocks left over from when I made my Pineapple Blossom quilt, and I made them into a table runner. I love the yellow bee fabric I used for the border. Bumble bees are always so cheerful.


Allie Aller tagged me with the Five Weird Things Meme. Reading other people's responses impresses me with how so many of us are weird in similar ways. So are we weird or normal? Well, here's my list, and I'm going to stretch to dig up the Truly Weird.

1. I have a transgendered canary. I wanted one that sang and only the males sing. The woman at the shop assured me that the canary I was buying was a singer, so I brought him home and named him Pancho, after the canary my grandmother had when I was growing up. After I'd had him for a week or so and he still hadn't sung, I realized that Pancho was never going to sing because he is a she. When I told my daughter that I was thinking of taking her back back to the shop Allie said, "Mom, you have to accept her as she is." So Pancho became Pancha. I love her to death. She doesn't sing, but she has a wonderful personality and she's very beautiful.
2. I perceive personalities in birds.
3. I am so spacially challenged that I was 13 or 14 when I finally learned my left from my right.
4. I have narrow feet with high arches and so I have terrible balance and I'm very particular about shoes. I like nice-looking shoes, but I won't wear anything uncomfortable. If I find stylish shoes that are comfortable, I feel like I hit the jackpot.
5. I hate to have the sun in my face, and so if I'm outside and it's sunny, I almost always wear a hat, particularly if I'm walking. I have a black woven hat that's that's my favorite.

So, is that weird enough?