1.31.14

I expect I am sewing on SOMEthing today. I have several quilts that I want to hand quilt, but my attention is wandering to other things. I will just blame PINTEREST.

Looking for the She Who Sews Hop schedule for today?

January 31
More Stars in Comanche
Stitchin’ By The Lake
selina quilts
Jane's Quilting
Baa's Amazing Adventures!
Quiltscapes
Grandmama's Stories

1.30.14

I celebrated yesterday, and chose a couple of things for my studio. I will be trying out some TRIANGLES ON A ROLL. My cousin recommended Thangles, but my local quilt shop carries these instead. I went ahead and bought the quarter-inch foot for the sewing machine.

I thought I had one, and I do but this one is designed to especially work with the even feed system. It has slots in the toes that allow the feed teeth to engage better. I also bought a vacuum attachment to help care for the new sewing machine. (Hey, DAD! DAD! DAD! Do you have one of these?) Probably wouldn't hurt to run it over the key boards of various computers around the house, also.

Today is a DOORSTOP hop day. 

January 30th
Just Let Me Quilt
Quilted Delights
Meadowbrook
Hill Valley Quilter
Pampered Pettit
Life in the Scrapatch
Seams To Be Sew

1.29.14

Happy birthday, to me!

Usually we celebrate birthdays by going out to dinner but this year we are trying something different. I have requested my birthday menu:

Curry squash soup or tomato soup 

Corn dogs or The Colonel's original recipe chicken

Spinach or Broccoli

Coconut Custard pie

 

 

 

 Looking for the She Who Sews Hop schedule for today? Just follow the links.

 

 January 29th
 

Why-Knot-Kwilt
BumbleberryStitches
Quilt Doodle Designs
Sew Incredibly Crazy
Thimblemouse and Spouse
Words & Stitches
The Cosmic Quilter

1.28.14

Tea Time Tuesday

Find this at Uncommon Goods. I think instead of tea, I would like coffee with my donut.











If you are looking for something to do, hop here:

threads on my socks
How ART you?
Moosestash Quilting
life, quilts and a cat too
Den syende himmel (has something to do with the word sky. She reblogs her posts in English at the bottom.)

1.27.14

MONDAY MANTRA

I am bloggy friends with a lot of people who like what I like. I have been a participant in lots of blog hops and learned lots of new tricks and gotten lots of new ideas for quilting. 

Do you see that graphic on the top right of this screen? The Door Stop? I will have my very own day to show a DOOR STOP that I made. I get to be a hostess! My day will be February 5.

Madam Samm, who organizes these things, decided to run a concurrent hop with Door Stop. It is called She Who Sews, and the hostesses were asked to create something from the Janet Wecker Frisch line of sewing room themed fabric. You can buy some here. It begins today and alternates days with Door Stop. I will do my best to keep you up-to-date with where to go on each day, but don't forget to check back HERE on February 5.

 January 27th
Joy Studio
Marjorie's Busy Corner
Tea Time Creations
Just Sew Quilter
I like to Quilt Blog
Shepody Mountain Crafter
Creatin' in the Sticks

1.26.14

Wouldn't you love to make a living following your passion? Amy Crook does. I discovered her on Pinterest. She is Amy of Antemortem Arts . In her words, "I paint small, strange watercolors and draw whimsical fandom cartoons so grown-up geeks can bring real art into their daily lives." 

She has a second design studio with the Monty Python inspired name,  Not Dead Yet Studios, where you can get her to design your website. 

Artwork by Amy Crook and she ETSYies HERE

Don't you think this little custom designed birthday card suits me to a "T" ? (yes, as in Star TREK)

1.25.14

It is, again, my turn to cook. Here is what I want to eat:

Tomato soup
Grilled cheese sandwich
Served by a liveried butler with a butlerian attitude.

Here is what I am probably going to end up making:
Salad
meatloaf
broccoli

Not so difficult. I will probably complain the whole time, anyway. 

For SURE I will complain inside my head but I will try to spare the rest of the family.

1.24.14

I am so busy that I only have time for one cup today, anyway.

1.23.14

Sewing. 
Watching the snow. 
Walking the dog for a few minutes in the afternoons. 
Drinking hot tea. 
A lot of hot tea.
Hoping to knit again soon.

1.22.14

Remember when I wrote about Karen Nyberg, quilting astronaut on the space station on THIS blog post? Well, she did a radio interview with Pat Sloan. I found out because I visited a fellow blogger, Kimberly Einmo. She has a podcast page, but I haven't figured it out yet. There is a youtube video, also, so I can put that right here for you!

1.21.14

TUESDAY TEA TIME

 

An exciting part about the internet is you can just about find anything to suit any interest. A frustrating part about the internet is sometimes it is hard to figure out the origin of the picture or information. 

I suspect this is possibly a lovely "water" feature in China (the red knot work on the tea pot), Japan (the first calligraphic figure means household or man, I think, but could also share its meaning in one or more other languages).The tea bowls with saucers suggest maybe Korea or Viet Nam to me, but I am really more familiar with Western tea-drinking styles. If you know, please tell me! 

1.20.14

Monday Mantra

As I get ready to schedule this to post, I hope my Monday has lots of moments for sewing. That is what I am looking forward to doing.

1.19.14

I unraveled this beautiful Misti Alpaca Chunky yarn from its amoeba-existence as a wrap. When I finally finished the project, I blogged it here, September 5, 2010. Sometimes an "is what it is" project never really hits the mark. The lovely yarn never did justice to the design of the wrap. Or, maybe it was the other way around. Whenever I picked it up, it grew narrower and would never really WRAP. The button kept falling off. It just wasn't right. 
Now I have three big balls of the most delightful feeling yarn EVER. I am using size 10.5 needles instead of 15 and the tighter gauge will definitely give it a little more presence. At least it doesn't seem to want to be something else when I pick it up.
Well. I wrote this post over a week ago and scheduled it for today. I have not knit since then, and my tendonitis is starting to feel better. I have those socks from last week that I want to work on. I have the above transformation-from-useless-to-scarf to work on, LOTS of things. I don't dare pick up the knitting needles again just yet.

1.18.14

picture found HERE

I am obsessed with Star Trek. I don't know when it happened, probably in the 1960s. It was the time of the SPACE RACE, I lived on the SPACE COAST, and exploration was governmentally funded. I saw people walk on the moon. The idea that our universe was more than just our planet, then more than just what we could see, then more than we could conceive caught the imagination of a lot of people. If it couldn't be quantified, how could it be qualified? ANYthing could be possible.

picture found HERE

Anyway, I am an avid watcher and rewatcher of all the televised Star Treks and spinffs. I have seen all of the original series at least three times, some episodes more than that. I have done the same with Star Trek, the Next Generation. 

picture found HERE

I have watched all of Deep Space Nine, which I did not really appreciate when it was on television the first time.

I was too busy with other things. I remember watching a few episodes of Voyager and not having time to watch that either. 1993-2000+ were busy times. 
 

picture found HERE

I have since gone back to see Voyager and expect I will watch it again this month or next.

 

picture found HERE

Star Trek Enterprise is another "spin-off" In chronology, it predates the original series, but it is the most recent creation for television. I did not like it much when it was first televised. I watched it all the way through a couple of years ago and I warmed up to it a bit. I have just finished watching it again, and I LOVED it. Like the original series, Enterprise only lasted about three years until being cancelled. They had moved the story along very well by the second season but then I don't know what happened. Then it picked up again with another story line and then it fell apart. A shame, there was a lot of potential.

Anyway, I have a MY OBSESSION Pinterest board and anything I like that I see about Star Trek I put on there. And yes, I have had a Star Trek costume. I had a phaser that made the right sounds. I have considered getting the communicator sound for my flip phone. But I did not buy any of the "collectibles". I remember seeing the set with the transporter that made the real transporter sound, but I never wanted to own any of those things. If I can't have a REAL TRANSPORTER, no substitute will do. And what am I going to do with all those "action figures" anyway.

So, like my tea pots and tea cups, I am enjoying my virtual collection of Star Trek memorabilia and collectibles. I love that I can indulge myself with out spending anything but time.

1.17.14

Happy Birthday south.Florida.niece.#1!

Remember, as long as you can benchpress your sister, everything's gonna be fine.

art by Ryan Schude

1.16.14

Tea Time Tuesday (postponed due to more birthdays)

 

1.15.14

Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you!

1.14.14

Monday Mantra (postponed from yesterday) is a poster I finally figured out how to make by myself. 

1.13.14

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AWAY SON!

1.12.14

I tried to do a little more knitting but ended up buying some elbow braces that have pockets for cold packs. I have used them for two days now, and I am seeing some improvement even though I have picked up the needles and done a little knitting.  I couldn't help it. Really.

I got some of THIS.
It is WONDERFUL.

I am using SIZE 9 NEEDLES.

I am making SOCKS.

They are 100% WOOL.

They are WASHABLE.

1.11.14

Some spinning has been happening. I started back on the wheel LAST WEEK, with some pink. Since pink is my unfavorite, I did not  worry about "wasting" it while I relearned how to spin and ply. After plying and a little Euclan bath, the hank was almost perfectly balanced. I am amazed.
So I looked around and found another pile of roving I thought I might not mind wasting. 

What do you think of this? Photography cannot possibly express the neon of that lime green.

Photography cannot possibly express how much like dried blood that red looks. The turquoise/aqua is a perfectly reasonable color. It looks nice with the green.  But the blood is just too much. It should have been pink or something or NOTHING to play nicely with the others. 

What do you think the people at Spunky Eclectic were thinking? How did this get into my collection?

1.10.14

Not much going on, this part of the week.The weather has settled down. I have been reading again. It seems I am still in the mystery zone. 

Probably illustrated by Paul Kidby

I ordered a book from the DiscWorld series devised by Terry Pratchett, and Stephen Briggs, but my library has not told me it has arrived. Some friends recommended it, and I really wanted to try it. I enjoy science fiction and fantasy, but never read a graphic novel before, let alone a series.
I almost picked up a Robert Jordan and considered rereading the Wheel of Time series but in the end, I went to a Medieval nunnery with Margaret Frazer and her detective, Dame Frevisse. 

Jacket illustrator Warren Madill

 
Has anyone made a television series of these yet? I would think so. I had better check into it.

1.9.14

A week ago, I had a bad hair day. A REALLY bad hair day. Since there are not very many photos of me on the internet, you may not know that I have fairly long hair. 

A bad hair day to me is particularly lengthy to sort out. When I say I got a brush stuck in my hair, I mean I couldn't even find that sucker.

I dread days like this.

A bad hair day in winter invites all kinds of static electricity which is so easily encouraged by the fact that I now use an acrylic electric blanket and wear an acrylic fleece robe after waking. 
 






 




Bacon makes everything better.

1.8.14

Tea Time Tuesday (postponed from yesterday)

Happy and Scary Teapot found HERE

1.7.14

Happy birthday, HOMESON!

1.6.14

MONDAY MANTRA

I suppose the key this week is to make a plan and spend some time thinking positively about following it. I have my timer by my side ready to convince myself that I can do any unpleasant task for 10 minutes at a time. Now, where do we keep the vacuum cleaner?

1.5.14

My elbows hurt. I have diagnosed myself with tendonitis. I have researched the probable cause and symptom abatement rituals.

Caught augmenting the Harrison's yarn stash, Tippy was banned for life.

I cannot knit.

I must use ice.


I still knit about a half hour to an hour a day. Somone has to use up all this yarn. Nevermind, I will spin. Spinning does not seem to use my muscles in the same way. 

Now I have more yarn.

I have not spun in a couple of years. I can see it is going to take a while before I find the rhythm of it, but it was fun to do. I practiced several different techniques with this batch of roving, so this yarn is not really going to be very useful for knitting or crochet.

1.4.14

I am fascinated by seahorses. I mean it. I bought several books about them after visiting the Aquarium in Chattanooga, Tennessee a couple years back.

I thought I could have one as a pet, but I am afraid that would not be practical. Maintaining a saltwater tank would just be beyond my capacity to constantly practice chemistry.  So, after reading all those books, drawing all those pictures, and then buying seahorse patterns, I decided to MAKE seahorses. 

I never got around to it, but who knows. It is a new year, and I have a new sewing machine. 

And I can play the video below while I look for those patterns. Maybe you will enjoy it, too. It does not really show the beauty and variety of seahorses, but if you are drinking coffee while watching it, you might have to put it down so you can laugh neatly.

1.3.14

art by Brock Davis

I said UNICORN, not horse. Try again, barber.