Category Archives: Quilting

Sewing for the Folsom Community Bazaar – 2013

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Well, my oldest niece thinks that one of my New Year’s resolutions should be to blog more often, so here we go.

Back in October, I made my annual trek to Mom and Dad’s ranch near Hermosa, SD, for the annual Community Club Bazaar. Well, unfortunately, the Bazaar was derailed by the Atlas blizzard. Instead of a fun community get-together, we had rain, freezing rain, high winds, and then a true blizzard. Many, many neighbors lost cattle in this storm. At the ranch, we were without power for five days and phone for four days. But all that gets an entry of its own, later.

Here are the things that I made for the Bazaar! Some of them ended up being sold at the (postponed and modified) Bazaar, while some of them we donated to the Soup and Pie supper at my Mom’s church. I did forget to take a picture of the afghan – this was a crocheted afghan that someone else started, and then passed on to a knitting friend of mine who wasn’t really interested in finishing it, so she passed it on to me, and I finished it and donated it to the Bazaar, where it surprised us all by selling for $95! I didn’t really care for the yarn or the color, so that was a great surprise for me – I guess if we all had the same taste, the world would be a very boring place. I found a picture showing the afghan on my phone!

Lustrous yarn afghan

Lustrous yarn afghan

Counting by Fives Quilt for Folsom Community Bazaar

Counting by Fives Quilt for Folsom Community Bazaar

This quilt started out as something else entirely. I originally intended it to be similar to this “Field of Flowers” quilt – but then I decided that there was no way I was going to get it done in time for the Bazaar.  So I hopped on Pinterest and found “Counting by Fives” – which seemed more possible.

Counting by Fives quilt
Then I had a color conundrum. I started this quilt before taking my color class. Now I realized I had some very high contrast strips in there, while most of the other strips were about the same value. So I posted on Facebook and got feedback from my friends, most of whom voted that I go with the more blended values. So that required some ripping out. I think it required some fabric purchases as well (I always MEAN to make scrappy quilts, but really, it takes A LOT of fabric to make a quilt.)

Too much contrast in some strips

Too much contrast in some strips

Less contrast, looks better, I think

Less contrast, looks better, I think

The only fabric I could find that worked with all the other fabrics as a background was lavender. This was going to be a decidedly girly, Easter-y quilt.

After getting the top sewn, I still had to quilt it. I do have a New Joy quilting frame, and a Juki TL98E machine, so, in theory, this should go quickly? Well, not if you have to rip out a full five rows because your tension on the back isn’t so good. Now I have “new needle” on the check list for each time I start quilting a quilt. I did make a great discovery, I love Aurofil thread, and will be using that to quilt my quilts unless I find something more miraculous. It worked really well. The only problem is that the quilt store that carries it in the Denver area is WAAAAAY down south.

And of course there were Barbie doll dresses.  One of these got donated to the Soup and Pie supper rather than the Bazaar, since we weren’t sure the Bazaar would be re-scheduled.

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Western-themed receiving blankets and burp cloths. Again, I think one of these went to the Soup and Pie supper.

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Horse pillowcases and crocheted potholders. The pillowcases went to the Soup and Pie supper, I already have fabric to make new ones for the Bazaar next year. My second-oldest niece also got a set of these for her birthday.

That’s all for now, more catching up on sewing/crafting in a few days!

After a long hiatus….

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Ok! I am back! Sorry it has been so long, life has been crazy. But I must remember that it is good therapy to write on the blog! What have I been up to, you may ask. Well, since the Las Vegas trip, I have been in San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Orlando for work as well as some in-state trips, and in South Dakota to be a God-parent to my newest nephew! There were some great restaurants on some of those trips, and I will share those with you over the next few days.

I have also been busy sewing/crocheting/knitting/crafting when I can. With two new nephews and one new niece in the last 5 months, I have been busy. I am glad to say that they each have a crocheted afghan, although I am working on another one for baby L., the youngest, in colors more suitable to her nursery. Then I will get started on the pieced quilts for each of them.

I have no pictures of Nephew O’s blanket from December. Asking his mother to send me some. Sometimes when I get in a tizzy to mail things, I forget to document properly. He also got some “Magic Slippers” baby booties, but again, no picture.

Nephew B received the “November” baby afghan from from the Leisure Arts booklet “A Year of Baby Afghans.” I did this one as a Camp Loopy project last summer, so you may recognize it. I love this afghan, it goes together very quickly, no seaming, and looks lovely.

Leisure arts november baby afghan

He ALSO got Magic Slippers booties, with a slight modification and addition of the ribbing/sock top which apparently makes them stay on better. “Camo” colored yarn, which was a fortuitous donation from my friend Judy, when I was looking for sock yarn for this very purpose.

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Baby L., born March 1, received the Heirloom Baby Blanket (Coats and Clark, free pattern) – this is the one that nearly drove me crazy. All kinds of errata, but none of it on the original pattern page. You have to dig around Ravelry to find it. Beautiful afghan, though. And she gets a one-of-a-kind because I am never doing THAT again. Plus, that one really isn’t in her nursery colors, so I am working on another one for her. That is the bonus she gets for being the only girl in the latest batch of babies!

Coats and clark baby heirloom afghan

She also got some booties (notice Auntie G. running out of yarn and winging it):

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And…other than wrapping up baby afghans and mailing them off, what else have I been doing? I FINALLY finished the #359 Nancy One Skein Shrugigan by Lisa Limber, which I believe I started in June 2010. This was a good airplane knit, but then I ran out of yarn, and had to search for yarn in the same dye lot (after tearing my studio apart, of course, being certain I had purchased enough) (apparently I hadn’t). I made it a bit longer than the pattern suggested, and with a different yarn, so that was probably the problem. I LOVE how it turned out, I have worn it several times already, and get compliments on it.

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And knitting and crocheting isn’t all there is to life, right?

So JoAnn Fabric had a small flannel sale. These are all destined to be made into Auntie G.’s famous receiving blankets. Some of this has already been made into receiving blankets. I was VERY excited to find the camouflage flannel, and then proceeded to buy a bolt of it at the next store (that was all that I could find within a reasonable radius….)  And I was just looking for fish flannel this morning, and I see I have some right there. BONUS!JoAnn Fabric Flannel

I decided to do some further color work, and make some mug rugs, foundation strip-piecing. I like how the red/orange one turned out (not quilted yet, though.) I call this one Mango Salsa.

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I am also making a brown/white/green one which is supposed to be called “Chocolate Mint,” and already I don’t like it as much as this one. Still in progress, no picture yet.

Andddddd…. last but not least, I always have a pair of crochet potholders going. I was working on one when we went to see the Lady Jackrabbits play in the Division I Tournament in Boulder. The chicken purse approves.

Chicken purse

Let me tell you, you could smuggle things into places in the chicken purse, because the chicken purse flummoxes the security guys. They were pretty much stunned.

Quilting, Knitting, Crabs and Owls

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Look at this marvelous octopus my friend K. crocheted for me! I love him! I put him on the TV stand, right in front of the cable box, so he had to get moved a little bit. I think he makes a lovely centerpiece.

When I saw my friend E. had a pink solar crab, I immediately had to have one. I am pretty sure this is the website I ordered from. It had to come all the way from China. I did order three, so I gave two away to my nieces as birthday gifts. Everyone needs a happy, solar waving crab. His arms wave and his eye stalks go up and down.

So when I saw the happy head-turning owl, I had to have him too. I found him at Zandbroz in Sioux Falls.

His head turns when it is light. But only sporadically in the room light. I am trying to decide which of these to affix to my dashboard. Both seems like it might be a little too much.

Besides my other projects, I am allowing myself to be randomly distracted by making pink and white quilt blocks. For what? I have no idea. But now I have purchased more pink fabric. Kind of defeats the purpose of being scrappy.

This is the new fabric, from The Quilt Store. Luscious, isn’t it?

The top for my one niece’s pieced baby quilt is done! Look at that fancy border! Look at all of those little pieces! Looks nifty, but NEVER AGAIN! She is getting a one-of-a-kind.

I made this quilt entirely from a pattern in a book, which is kind of unusual for me. Usually I wing it in one way or another, adding or subtracting.

This is my mom’s sock – all repaired. After I re-knit the heel incorrectly about 3 times. Apparently I need to knit more socks so I know what I am doing. It had a giant hole in the heel, so I ripped out the whole heel and leg (just a shorty, so no big deal) and re-knit. It would have been done in a jiffy if I hadn’t tried to knit a top-down heel on it instead of a toe-up heel. No wonder it wouldn’t work. Then I knit a couple of different toe-up heels, trying to figure out the correct one. OF COURSE it wasn’t one from the book that the pattern was from. That would be WAAAAAY to obvious.

You can’t even really tell in the picture where the old yarn starts and the new begins. You can tell in person, but it will be less noticeable after a few washes.

I am going to make some more denim potholders, for my Mom this time. She likes owls and mushrooms. It is quite a quest right now to find realistic looking owls and mushrooms, there are a lot of cutesy, cartoony ones, which is not what I wanted. I think this will work.

And that is a brief summary of SOME of the projects I am working on right now. Some of them are presents, so they are SECRET. Tune in later to see them. Maybe after Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving, I will be back on Tuesday if not sooner!

Crafting/Sewing/Knitting Update

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I am trying to get back on a one-a-day posting schedule and am already behind, but we will see how it goes. Life has settled down a little bit, with a little less work travel in the next few months, but I do have some personal travel coming up. More to blog about!

I finished the Octopus and Bubbles quilt for my Color Theory class. This quilt was supposed to use color to show transparency – so you are supposed to be able to see the octopus’ tentacles through the bubbles, and that is done but using a color that combines the color of the octopus and the bubble. It is not a terribly complex quilt but it was fun.

As I was working on my third Camp Loopy project on this Sunday, I ran out of green yarn.  I was pretty sure I had purchased enough green yarn, and so I tore around the house looking for the yarn. Now I am questioning my amounts – I bought two skeins of everything, but I had used green for the predominant color in two blocks, so it is possible I used up all of the green. Anyway, I decided to make my project into a long skinny wrap instead of a square blanket. Here are the three blocks I need to sew together by the end of the day today:

This pattern is called “Vortex” and I should have gone down one or two sizes of crochet hook, because it is blocking out quite large. I will turn it into a square blanket when I get some more green yarn.

I also have another color project due the day after I come back from a trip to SD over Labor Day, so I am trying to get some work done on that. It will not be complete, but I would like it to be together at least. We will see. This is a beach scene, the assignment is to show depth and distance through using color. This is the beach and the beginning of the ocean:

Yes, of course there is going to be an octopus.

And, we have a new TV! The TV in the kitchen died (of course the REALLY old one downstairs is still going strong) and so I said to Ken that if he got the new disposal in the sink installed (which also died a week or so ago, the new one had been sitting in the kitchen for a week), we would go buy a new one. So – ta da – after almost two hours of sweating and muttering, the disposal was in the sink and we went to Target for a new TV.
Here it is in in all its splendor:

Please note, that is not a real sandwich on the TV stand, that is a fabric coin purse that is designed to look like a peanut and butter and jelly sandwich.

Gardening and Banh Mi

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I continued my adventures on Monday by going to Golden so I could go to Golden Quilt Company and Golden Fiber Arts, (where I usually take my class) and get some additional fabric and embellishing materials for my Koi Quilt. I got a roll of “nature” themed pastel fabrics (and now I am not sure I will use any of them in this quilt, well, maybe for the water lily) and then some Angelina opalescent fibers (I always think of Angelina Jolie and wonder what she has to do with quilt embellishing….), some Shiva Paintsticks (oil paint in a stick – can Glenderella still make a mess? Why yes, yes she can!), and some hand dyed fabric by my color instructor Heather Thomas. I think the fabric will be used to make the koi, it is yellow and orange.

Another good reason to go to Golden was for lunch. I had been debating my lunch options. Lao Wang (soup dumplings) was closed on Mondays, but I had been looking at some other options in the area. When it occurred to me that I would go to Golden, of course I went to D’Deli for lunch.They are only open until 5:00 p.m. so I don’t get to go there when I have my regular class. They are always busy, but on Monday there were plenty of tables inside because everyone wanted to be outside since it was so nice.

You can choose to make your own sandwich with your choice of meat, etc., but I always go for one of their pre-concocted options, because they really have some wild ones. This time I had the Bahn Mi – Pork Loin, Chili Garlic Aioli, Mixed Greens, Jalapenos, Cucumbers, Carrots, Green Onion, Cilantro. I am now a fan of the Bahn Mi. I have no idea if theirs is authentic Vietnamese or not, but I sense an impending trip to sample various bahn mi around the area.

Lots of interesting and delicious veggies.

You are correct in assuming the Dear Husband would never eat this.

Last time I was here I had the Banano – Salami, Pepperoni, Cream Cheese, Sriracha Hot Sauce, Honey Mustard, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Red Onions, Jalapenos, Banana Peppers, Salt and Pepper. Also excellent. D’Deli has excellent bread, with a toothy crust, mmmm, I want some right now.

I ate, made the above-referenced purchases at the quilt store and the fiber store, and headed home. I knew I had to get that quilt sketched out. I sat down with the colored pencils, crayons, and markers and went to town.

I spent my entire life believing that I couldn’t draw. I got to be pretty good at drawing in Adobe Illustrator, and I thought, why can’t I do that in real life? Turns out, I am actually OK at it. Better than I thought at least. I just needed to spend more time with it and do things slowly  – story of my life!

From an early report card: “Glenderella hurries.” That pretty well sums it up. Everything that I have learned to take my time with has improved. (I scanned in those sketches yesterday.)

It was lovely out that day so after dinner I worked in the yard, clearing the old weeds from last year and dead leaves from one of the front flower beds. The little grass-looking-clump type plants apparently are pretty good at re-seeding themselves, hmmmm. Will need to dig some of those up and relocate in the current “Weed Garden,” future “Rock Garden.” I am busy digging up all of the current plants in the Rock Garden and re-locating them so we can level it and start over. By ‘level’ I mean, kill everything else that has decided to grow in there, such as a bunch of elm trees and grass. And thistles from across the fence.

“Weed Garden” in 2010

See, we have already made a start.

Then we will put down black plastic and mulch and use some of the interesting rocks I have brought from SD to make some beds, and re-install some of the plants that have shown sufficient vigor to grow over there, the sunniest and hottest part of the yard.

In other news, the neighbors with the alien landing pad have now camouflaged it with mulch, so as to be less obvious. There might even be one or two aliens hiding UNDER the mulch. Small ones, you know. You can see they put down some cement stepping stones for the landing vehicle.

Ken would say “Ok, this blog is long enough.” So it will be!

The Tetrad Landscape Color Quilt and the Koi Quilt

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I took Monday off because I missed my Color Theory Class earlier in the month because of a work conflict. It was nearly 80° so it was a pretty great day to have off.

The class was from 10-1, and was at a different quilt store, Wooden Spools, than the one I usually attend, but same teacher, and they are at the same place in their schedule. Different ladies in the class, ha ha ha, like new victims, but I didn’t have as much back story to tell with this quilt as I usually do, so they lucked out. The way the class works is that everyone displays their quilt or weaving or painting that they made since the last month that fits with the color theme we are learning about – this month it was the tetrad – four colors equidistant from each other on the color wheel. I chose blue, orange, red-violet and yellow-green, and so did most of the class. There were, as always, a very wide variety of designs and ideas.

I think I posted the design I drew and worked from:

I lost my mind and made this quilt about 35″ by 50″. What was I thinking? But I am happy with the way it turned out.

It is not quilted yet but it is fully assembled and fused together. I got some hints on a few finishing touches and how to quilt it and finish it from my teacher and classmates.

The sun is my favorite, of course.

After everyone has shown their quilt and we have all commented and asked questions, then our instructor lectures about the next quilt and shows examples. In this case, the next quilt is supposed to use color to show light or luminosity. It should look like light is shining from within, or shining on, or around the subject or part of the quilt. I have a week and half to get this quilt done, because I did want to wait until I heard the lecture, so I will be making a SMALL quilt. And I think I am going to do koi and water lilies, with the dark water as the contrast.

After my class, I went to Golden for lunch and to buy materials for the next quilt, but I think I will include that lunch report tomorrow!

Here are a couple of my sketches. After working on these, I had to go out and buy a new box of crayons, because the ones I have are very disappointing.Nothing like a new box of crayons!

I am well aware those lily pads look kind of like giant Pac Man monsters ready to chomp on my fish.

I put some fabric up on the wall and started cutting out patterns. (These are not the true colors of the fish/lily pads).

I really like this layout the best, but the fish and the lily pads are not interacting with each other at all.

I just don’t like this as much for some reason.

I am not wild about this one either. Maybe the lily pads need to be bigger. Maybe the blue piece needs to be less wide, because I just slapped a piece that was a handy size up there. I need to decide, and get to quilting, because my class is one week from last night! It sounds like it might rain this weekend, which would be good, because then I wouldn’t feel like I should be working in the yard, and I could work on this piece.

The four newts say “hi!”

Exciting Things We Did Today

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Stayed up too late last night fiddling around with the landscape quilt and then had weird dreams about carrying Leo the cat all around Washington, DC, visiting Senators. Oy. Need to go to bed earlier tonight!

I now have the quilt all ironed together, except the sun had to be removed tonight because the dark blue was showing behind it, so that has to be ironed back on tomorrow and then I need to add all the detail (lots) around the sun.

Couldn’t take any more leftovers (I am really good for only about one round of leftovers on each meal and then I am kind of done with that food…..) so we went out for Pho tonight, at our favorite place. Although I did not have my “usual,” I mixed it up a bit and had shrimp instead of meatball. And no spring rolls, because I wasn’t that hungry. Then I had a 20% off coupon for Bed, Bath and Beyond, which is next door to Pho 78, so we went in to buy a new bathroom rug for the guest bathroom, because the one rug in there has been washed to often with other rugs, and has picked up their colors, and is no longer light blue, but “ishda” as my mother would say. So we got a new blue one, and we had some emergency candy needs, so we took care of them. I can tell you Angry Bird brand fruit snacks are to be avoided. However, on-sale hollow chocolate Easter chicks are excellent.

When we got home we discussed briefly with the neighbor across the street the landscaping that the neighbor kitty-corner from us is doing. Ken originally said it was a ramp to allow runaway cars to leap over their garage, but I pointed out that it was obviously a UFO landing pad, and he realized the error of his ways, and so that is how we refer to it. I wonder how they talk about the strange goings-on at our house when we do stuff…

Here is a picture of the UFO landing pad:

It is much more pyramidal than it appears in the picture, it doesn’t look like much here but a small UFO could definitely land on it.

Supposed to rain/show this weekend so there may not be much gardening, maybe I will get some seeds started….hope springs eternal….

Works in Progress – March 2012

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There are several works in progress at the moment. Some of them are in process every day, some have been sadly neglected.

These quilt blocks are for my niece K. I try to get a pieced quilt, an embroidered quilt, and a crocheted afghan done for each niece or nephew within a year of them being born. Ever since three of them were born within 6 months of each other, I have been behind. This niece MAY receive this quilt in time for her 5th birthday this fall, I hope. I hope she is still fond of bunnies at that age. Next time I am picking a quilt that does not have 12 blocks. My goal is to get this one done in time to enter in the Boulder County Fair this summer.

The next four blocks. June is out of sequence because the transfer on that one didn’t work well and I need to do some tracing. And I see that I neglected to do July’s eyeball, poor rabbit. This pattern was a vintage pattern that came from Patternbee.

Close up of April.

I started these socks in a class on knitting two socks at once on one circular needle. I am not sure that I totally agree this is possible, when it comes to the heels. They are called “Kickline Socks” and I think this would have been a better pattern in a solid color yarn. I am not sure I like these, but they are nearly done. I think the last time I tried them on, they wouldn’t stay up, so I may rip them back part way or all the way and make a pattern I like better, so I could actually wear them, because I really like this yarn color, it is Lorna’s Laces in the colorway Lorakeet.

This sock is going to be the subject of future articles entitled: Can this sock be saved? I  made these ankle socks for my mom a few years ago, and she wore this one out, and then tried to fix it herself. They are toe-up socks, so I think I will be able to just rip it out down to the hole, and start re-knitting. I still have the yarn, so she lucked out there.

This is the “Nancy” one skein shrugigan. A friend at Knit Knight made one and I loved it, so am working on my own. By the Shaefer Yarn Company.

I realize I totally forgot the socks that I am currently working on, whoops. Maybe later this week.

And now for the big project, the color class project. Can you tell what it might be from my design wall? I have no mad drafting skillz, so I just taped out an approximation onto my design wall with masking tape. You can see my youngest niece A’s pieced quilt off to the side, I have ONE strip sewn together.

Here is a rough draft of the design. I decided to do a landscape, but not really a traditional one. And I wanted to draw a design by hand instead of with the computer this time.

It will be something along those lines, at least. We will see how it goes. I have it marked out to be pretty big, so I better get going on it. The colors of the tetrad I chose are blue, orange, yellow-green and red-violet.

Still Life with Newt

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Progress has been made on the Newt quilt. Saturday I got it all fused together and started quilting it. I am done with the majority of the quilting, I didn’t want to make it too visible because the quilt already has so much going on. But I do think I need to do a little more in the background/wall. Make a little bit of a pattern back there so it isn’t too flat.

I had to make 5 of those darn newts until I got one I liked. I would get their teeny tiny fiddly eyes fused on, and then I would draw the mouth, and I wouldn’t like it.

#1 too dark of a tone of red.  #2 too glum. #3 too, I don’t know, smug? He looks irritating. #4 Too happy. Too much like Kermit the Frog.

The eventual winner. I think he looks mostly neutral, perhaps a bit perplexed.  Ken also pointed out his head was too round and that was making him look like Kermit, so he got a trimming.

You can still see some quilt marking lines here. I also need to add a tassel onto the end of the tapestry. I wish the Twinkies stood out more from the table, I quilted the heck out of them so they would show more than their surroundings. I would really like to get the fabric paint and add texture to the creme filling but I think I will resist.

Had to have this mostly done this weekend because I am going to be gone on work travel a good part of this week.

The Newt Starts to Come Together

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I think this is the somewhat final design for the Newt Quilt piece – of course, when I went to look for fabrics, things changed a bit.

The background fabrics are actually pretty close to what is pictured. The table and Twinkies and the yellow in the tapestry are far too yellow-orange, and I had to look for fabrics that were more plain yellow. (The assignment for this month is a Triadic color scheme, and I chose the primary colors of yellow, blue and red.)

Brief digression:

Ken had to go to work BOTH DAYS this weekend, so there wasn’t very much interesting cooking, just more eating of leftovers. Since he was gone on Saturday, I was feeling guilty that our mail lady had to get out of her vehicle, and walk up a little tiny path and then LEAN over the snow bank to put our mail in the box, so I decided to shovel the giant snowbank out of the way. Our jr. in high school neighbor from across the street came out and helped me after I had been working at it a while, and he made the last part go considerably faster. I will have to make him cookies. She should be able to drive up to it now. She will have to back up to get back out, but she can drive up to the mail box. Of course, on Sunday, my arms and wrists and right shoulder had a few things to say about that.

ANYWAY, as a reward for me getting that done, I went off the the quilt store (Harriet’s Treadle Arts) and got myself a hot chocolate at Starbucks on the way. I found two fabrics that I thought would be ideal for the bottom of the table and the tapestry. (I took along my drawing, but not the color wheel, big mistake.) That was almost too easy! It was too easy. When I got home, I discovered that the yellow in the checkerboard pattern for the tapestry was VERY yellow gold, and that my drawing had a lot of yellow gold in it. So, back to the drawing board.

Got some housecleaning done, some work on some “postage stamp” quilt blocks that I am doing to use up scraps, some sorting of fabric scraps into colors, and some work on my niece A’s pieced quilt. Ken didn’t get home until after midnight, and I didn’t sleep well until he got home.

He was up again Sunday morning and headed into work at 9:00. I headed out to another quilt store at about 10:00, and found some more yellow-yellows and and olive (olive is actually a tone of yellow) for the table top and twinkies, and a couple of red/yellow prints for the tapestry. The rest of the day was spent figuring that out and doing some more housecleaning. Ken got home and watched golf and did laundry, I made fajitas for dinner (meh). Got most of the fabrics I am going to use for The Newt fused and ready to go.

Of course I needed the color wheel to do some checking (I have two of them) and I couldn’t find either one. Hopefully one is in the car. I already found something this weekend that was “lost” – already can’t remember what that was, but it was in the sewing room and it was under a pile……

Important new hint: to clean your iron after you have fusible webbing/spray starch on it – iron on a dryer sheet. Wow! Yes, while the iron is still hot. I am managing to keep the iron clean this way. Ken doesn’t like surprises when he goes to iron his shirts. Also, the teflon pressing sheet for use w/fusible webbing was a very good purchase.

MaryAnne wanted to play fetch all weekend, I got out two new balls for her since she has destroyed most of her older ones, and she lost both of them already. Leo was carrying his stuffed kitten around in the middle of the night and crying because he was lonely. High maintenance weekend for cats.

So how about some gratuitous cat pictures?

Leo is mad because MaryAnne is copying him.

Being all cute for once. We used this one in our Christmas letter in 2010.

If MaryAnne isn’t getting enough attention, she rolls around on the floor like this and washes her stomach. Then she gets attention because we tell her she isn’t being ladylike.