Oh, Snap! Or "Has This Ever Happened To You"?

Aargh. Last night, while in the locker room of my unit, getting into my uniform and getting ready for what promised to be a busy night, I lean down to tie my shoe and hear (and feel!) a big old SNAP! Uh, oh, this can't be good. It wasn't. No, I didn't break a bone, but something worse - I snapped one of the underwires in my bra. Great. Not only did it poke me periodically for the rest of the night, but even worse, it left me looking a bit, um, uneven. My left side was behaving nicely, staying just where I wanted it, but my right side was acting like a free spirit, doing it's own thing. I spent most of the night trying to discreetly hike up my right strap to bring things back into line.

In case you haven't guessed, there's been no quilting or crocheting going on around here lately!

Where The Hell Is Godzilla When You Need Him?

Grrr. Pulled out my Chevron Scarf that I knitted two years ago (well, it *is* November), and was greeted with this:

A giant hole.  And that wasn't the only one.  There were at least a dozen holes, some big, and some small, and other placed that were near-holes.  Damn moths!  This scarf was knitted with two colors of Socks That Rock:  Farmhouse and Watermelon Tourmaline.  99% of the holes were in the Watermelon Tourmaline rows.  Why?  Who knows?  Maybe the moths didn't like the  taste of the darker Farmhouse colors.  Or maybe they just liked the Watermelon Tourmaline better.  Either way, this scarf is now on it's way to being balls of yarn again, or more accurately a ball of yarn, and a big pile of chewed-up yarn.  I originally thought I could just cut out the chewed up yarn and rewind everything, but clearly that is not possible with the Watermelon Tourmaline, unless I want a scarf with a million knots in it, which I don't.  Fortunately, the same yarn is still available on Blue Moon's site, and is now winging it's way to me as I type.  I love this scarf.  It's from the book "Last Minute Knitted Gits" by Joelle Halvorsen.  I don't know on what planet this would be considered  Last Minute, because it took me a few months to knit, and from the looks of everyone's comments on Ravelry, it took most people at least that long.  So don't count on making this in a weekend.  It ain't gonna happen.  First of all, the instructions tell you to knit til the yarn is gone.  Hmm.  When my scarf hit 7 feet, I bound off, still with at least 1/3 of each ball of yarn.  Once it was blocked, it got looooonger!  Whoops.  At least my neck will stay warm.  My neck, and everyone near me, because it's that long!

Try New Things

Well, one of the bloggers out there has something going called "Try New Things Thursday". So, getting into the spirit of things, I figured I'd try tatting. Technically, it's not really a new thing for me; I learned how to do this when I was about 11. My grandmother taught me, and I think I tatted for all of 20 minutes before I gave it up. So, flash forward about 50 years, and here I am again. I am annoyed to say that I am having quite a time getting this right. I know how to make the stitches, I just seem to be making them on the wrong thread because when I close the ring, I have to pull the wrong thread. Of course it doesn't help that I have a 16 pound crazy cat who is hypnotized by the thread moving - he keeps attacking the thread and pulling the entire shebang out of my hand. No matter where he is, he seems to know that I'm working on this, and comes skulking around to take a flying leap on my tatting, sending me into near coronary arrest while he's at it!

It's Almost A Quilt!!

I'm so excited! In the home stretch of my Civil War Stars Quilt. I have all the blocks done, some of the sashing sewn on, too. I just have 4 more sashing strips to sew on, then the outer border, and tadaa!! I'll be done! This quilt actually moved along fairly quickly. And it'll be the second quilt I finished this year, which sets a record for me. If I chose to make quilts with fewer pieces, I would have more finished, but I like a challenge. I'm going to work on the "Happy Dance" quilt next, but I can't say exactly when that will be, what with the holidays coming up.

Click on the picture for a way larger size!

Home Stretch

Finally finished with all 30 blocks for my Civil War Stars quilt. I can't tell you how much I love this quilt. I love the colors and the fabrics. The original quilt I saw was made entirely with reproduction fabrics, but mine is only about 60% or so repros. I was trying to keep costs down, so I used other fabrics in my stash that I thought would work, and I think they blend nicely. For those who keep track of these things, the 2-1/2 inch sashing strips are Kona Cotton Sand. The lovely deep pink and brown flowered material for the border is "Toast II" by Jo Morton.

It Said "Buy Me" So I Did

A fat quarter bundle of Jinny Beyer's "Kashmir" line. I love the blue and red colorways; the greenish-bronze color, not so much. I saw a quilt made out of the red and gold, so I'm going to make a test block to see how I like it. I'm also going to try one in the blue colorway.

New Kid On The Block

Well, I did it again, didn't I? Wandered away for a while. One more day, and I probably would have seen my face on a milk carton.

Time just got away from me. It's been very busy at work. A full moon, combined with it being 40 weeks after Valentine's day, and what do you have? Non-stop babies, that's what. Plus, I got the unpleasant news that I was going to have to work on Thanksgiving Day, so we managed to put together a Thanksgiving /Housewarming at my son's house. We put together a dinner for 20+ people in less than 5 days. Pretty good, no? We had a great time. I went over early in the day to make the potatoes and help him cook a turkey (his first time cooking one!) I had to also bring over half of my kitchen, plus the apple pie I made the day before, too. Everyone who came contributed something, as is usual in my very large family. All in all, the food was yummy, the company was great, and I was thrilled that so many people who mean so much to me could make it on such short notice. I'm a little less grumpy about working on Thanksgiving now.

Anyhow, Mike and Jess were feeling under the weather last week. I made a run to the store for Bananas, rice, applesauce and bread for toast - you know, the BRAT diet. While I was over there dropping things off, I noticed that it was a bit stuffy in the apartment. Being that it was a reasonably nice day out - no snow, rain, ice, gales, whatever - I suggested they crack open a window for a while for an air exchange. She opened the sliding door a bit, and later she heard meowing, which wasn't coming from their cat. There was a young ginger cat at the door, who allowed her to pick him up. He's now a member of the family, and getting used to their household, which includes Murray - all 27 pounds of him!

I'm guessing this little guy is about 5-7 months old. Jess thought he was a girl, but there are definitely pompoms under that tail, so those will have to go, too. He has a bit of an eye problem, but will go to the vet this week for a workup

Who could resist this little furry face? His name is Zach, by the way.

I Have Been A Bad, Bad Girl...

Gads, why does everyone have a sale at the same time? Every time I open up my email, there it is - another email with the word "SALE" in the header. How can I resist? Especially when it's followed by the words "quilt fabric". What's a girl to do? Heh. I'll tell you what she does. She gets busy clicking through that email to see what's going on. First stop was at my not-so-LQS, the day after a surprise visit from a pissed-off Mother Nature. The roads were plowed and clear, so off I went. I came home with this:

This is Jessica Levitt's Kingdom line for Windham Fabrics. There is a very pretty quilt made from this fabric line. It's a free pattern, and it's here. I like it; I think it has a lovely art-deco feel to it. The two solids at the left are not from this line; the purple is Quilters Cotton from Joann Fabrics, and the dark gray is "Coal" from Kona Cottons.

So, I've also been trolling the web. I needed one more fabric for the above mentioned quilt. Like a dummy, I bought the wrong color of one of the florals. Oh well, it will just go into my stash. No harm done.

Then I managed to track down some of the beautiful stripe of Paula Barnes "Cotton Club". I love this border stripe. I don't know what I'm going to use it for, but I'll think of some thing. In the meantime, it will hang out in my stash. Good =border stripes are hard to find.

And, just because I want to, some mini cupcakes that I made for Halloween. Dark chocolate cake with a cream icing - half orange, half chocolate. Yum.