Well Damn

Apologies for the poor language, but that was the nicest thing I had to say after machine quilting the red circles on my quilt yesterday and realizing that I hadn't basted well enough. The whole thing was a bunchy lumpy mess. And the only way to really truly fix it was to tear it apart and start over. Take out the machine quilting on every spoke of the circles, take out all the hand quilting, take out the basting. It was 5 p.m. when I figured this out. Ugh. I felt sick. It wasn't just the basting, it was a combination of small mistakes in judgment along the way that added up to yuck. I went for a walk to get some fresh air and make sure I wasn't being rash. When I came back it still looked yuck and I was resigned. I told Dave I was sorry but I was in no mood to fix the nice dinner I'd planned and would he please go get a frozen pizza and a Berries-n-Cream Dr. Pepper? He didn't even whine about going to the store. He knew it was bad. He noted that it was a good thing I'd baked cookies on Saturday. So, I popped in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie and got busy with the seam ripper. By the end of the movie I was almost done tearing up the quilt. Then we watched Napoleon Dynamite, which cheered me up quite a bit. After the movie, I pressed the heck out of the pieces and sewed the circles to the background (I had just pinned them, planning to applique and quilt at the same time - really bad plan). Now it's on a work table with the quilting lines remarked and about half basted. With a little luck, I'll be caught back up in a couple of days. Ugh. Bleh. Drat.

Oops, I accidently hand quilted it...

I'm still here and I'm still plugging away on this red/green quilt. Which really needs a better name. It also apparently needed to be hand quilted with perle cotton and a big chunky running stitch. I was just going to do the perle cotton in a few places to highlight some of the arcs of some of the circles. But it looked really good so I kept going. I even machine quilted a small section the way I had originally intended to make sure. The hand quilting looks way better. It's hard to explain to people that you hand quilted something by accident...

Parallel lives?

So last week Ash went on a mini-road trip to Seattle and Spokane with a friend. She saw a couple of concerts, got her picture taken with a member of one of the bands and left her purse in her friend's car at the end of the trip.

Also last week, Dave went on a mini-road trip to Montana with a friend. He saw a couple of concerts, got his picture taken with a member of one of the bands and left his keys in his friend's car at the end of the trip.

Those two have more than just freckles in common...



Speaking of AshLee, if you go here and click on 5A girls 400 meter dash finals, you can watch a video of Ash winning a state championship. I love the internet.

As for me, I'm plugging away at the red/green quilt. I was struggling a bit with the composition so I took it out to Sew Uniquely You for a consult with my quilting guru, Anna. I was strictly instructed to quit messing up this fine abstract quilt by trying to make it realistic. It was news I needed to hear. Sigh. Why is abstract so scary for me?

Here's some stuff I made

I was rather industrious Sunday morning. I trimmed this red circle thing into more of a flower-y shape and then I quilted it:



Next I made raspberry coffee cake with the fresh raspberries I bought at my new favorite produce market:


Yummy.

Then during the breaks in the World Cup soccer final, I whipped up this little bag, courtesy of this tutorial by Kristin La Flamme:



Then I gave up any pretense of productivity and read a book the rest of the day.

Rodeo Days

It's Rodeo Days, Cheney's own little slice of small-town americana. We're not too big into rodeo, but we like to go to the parade. Here it is in a snapshot:


Rodeo Queens are one of my favorite features of the parade. Here's Cheney's Rodeo Queen Kahla.


We also get a fair dose of local politicians. Here's our mayor, embracing the farming community aesthetic.


Not many small communities do parade floats anymore, but here's one from Davenport, a town about 35 miles from here. Also known as the town where I grew up.


These ladies from Benton County were my favorite Rodeo Queens. I was so impressed with how classy and elegant they looked while still adhering to Rodeo Queen conventions.


This fine John Deere tractor was a trophy-winning entry but they never announced which category it won.

wip friday

WIP (work in progress) Friday is an idea I'm borrowing from one of my favorite crafty blogs: hop skip jump.

So here's my WIP, a bit of green background. I love how a quilt looks when I start sewing it together. It's one of my favorite parts - that little thrill of "gosh, this really does look cool!"



This room sorta qualifies as a WIP also, as I'm still cleaning up random corners and slowly moving stuff back in here after the big painting project. I really love the color - the room is so much brighter and just has a happy energy now. Here's a shot of the painting/stamping/etc. table with new shelves:



And here's the cutting/ironing table with the newly white bookcase next to it. Look at all that happy-to-be-free fabric!



And finally, since my week just wouldn't be complete without posting a photo of my silly cat, here's Mr. Must-Jump-Into-Anything-Vaguely-Boxlike himself, checking out the ugly peach and green color scheme Miss Nikki thought was cool 15 years ago. No wonder this bookcase has been sitting in the garage...

a bunny to be named later

I made this little guy last week with the free wee bunny pattern from wee wonderfuls. All those cute craft blogs I've been reading have infected my brain. I want to make the pointy kitty next.

Anyway, I rationalized making the bunny by making him as a birthday gift. He turned out supercute and the recipient just loves him, but we haven't had any luck figuring out what his name is. If you have any ideas, please speak up.

I think the behind view is even cuter:

Wow, that's really green!

We painted the sewing/computer room today! This room doesn't get as much natural light as the rest of the house and it sometimes felt a bit dingy. A fresh coat of Green Apple has cheered things right up in here. The difference is really amazing.


Of course, the fact that I had to haul all of the crap out of here before I could even think about painting is probably also having some influence on the room feeling different. This is a before shot of the cutting/ironing table and the sewing table. Yikes.


This is supposed to be the painting/stamping/etc. table but it's kinda hard to get to. Dave is going to install some white shelving above this table tomorrow to provide much needed storage. We're also pulling a bookcase out of the garage, painting it and putting it next to the cutting table. Then I can take the fabric out of those boxes under the painting table. My poor fabric has been locked up for almost 5 years. Digging around in those boxes is a pain, not to mention the fact that it's super-inconvenient to RETURN the fabric to the boxes, thus more mess.

OK, gotta go paint some more.