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!

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.

Overachiever

I was running out of a good variety of blues and greens for the Thousand Pyramids quilt, so I spent Saturday cutting out more. As I've said before, I don't use templates any more. It's so easy to cut out strips, and then cut the strips to size using a triangle ruler. Maybe too easy. After a few hours of cutting, this is what I wound up with:

Over 600 new pyramids! Oops! So I guess I have enough for another quilt now.

This Is A First...

...because I'm only halfway done with my Thousand Pyramids quilt, and I already have the backing and the binding chosen and bought. It usually takes me a while to pick a backing, especially since I have fallen out of love with plain white, which used to be my backing of choice. I still have a queen-sized log cabin quilt that I finished well over 10 years ago sitting in my closet waiting for me to chose backing and even worse, I still have to figure out how I'm going to quilt it. I think I'll wind up sending it out, because the thought of having to hand quilt all that fabric acreage gives me the chills.

Anywhoo, here is the binding and the backing, along with the photography and quilting supervisor. He certainly is a busy boy these days. I chose a light green batik on the right of the picture, for the backing; and a dark green batik, on the left, for the binding. My not-so-local quilt store was having a summer sale, with 20% off selected fabrics, and 30% if you finished the bolt. There was a bit more of the light green than I wanted, but it didn't cost too much extra (read: $3.00!) to buy it, finish the bolt, and get a 30% discount!

Kona Cottons and Photography Assistants

Trying to set up a picture of some Kona Cotton bundles that were recent acquisitions, I used a white piece of fabric as a backdrop, and a couple of boxes to hold it up. Unfortunately, the photography assistant knew one of those boxes was his favorite sleeping box, and objected to the set up!

I recently invested in several of Robert Kaufman's Kona Cotton bundles. These are wonderful! I love the colors, and one of the sellers (I think Simply Solids on Etsy) labels each fabric with the name for easy reference. I love that! It's nice to look through the bundles and decide with color I like best for my project, and have a name to it, instead of trying to match it on my computer monitor.

Left to right: Purple People Eater, Spicy, and Pretty in Pink.

My Blue Heaven, Denim.

Well, there are a few more to post, but apparently, Blogger will not let me upload any more shots. Does anyone else think that Blogger has really gone downhill since Google took it over? Not only that, it's next to impossible to get an answer from anyone at Google when you have a problem. You have to post to one of their help forums, and hope you get a decent answer. I posted there a couple of months ago, and all I got were ridiculous posts, most saying, yeah, I have that problem, too" or "check your cookies". I finally got my techie son to help me fix it.

Break Time!

Taking a quick break from quilting to go back to the original intent of this blog - knitting! One of my coworkers is having a baby girl next week, so I'm knitting a baby hat for her. Or trying to, at least. I've knitted this hat several times in the last few months, but this is a variatin with a peapod on top. I started knitting the other night, but messed up while watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Honestly, that show is like watching a train wreck - I can't look away. So anyway, pulled it off the needles, and then restarted on a 16" circular. Ugh. I didn't like the way it knitted on that needle, so pulled it off and restarted on dpns. Knitting merrily away, and Mica comes into the room, sees what I'm doing, crouches down, wiggles that butt, and takes a flying leap into my lap. 15 pounds of pussycat landing in your lap at high velocity hurts, let me tell you. He snatches the yarn in his mouth, jumps off, yanks, and the entire thing comes off the needles. Grrr. Another restart. I'd have had the damn thing done if I didn't have to do restarts. I'll post a shot of it when I'm done. In the meantime, this is the last hat I knitted. It's the Upside Down Daisy Hat from Susan Anderson's Itty-Bitty Baby Hats.