I've Been Busy!

A very good kind of busy, though - lots of stuff going on!

First, (drumroll please) ... I finished the sweater back! Yeah, that's astounding enough, but what's more amazing is, the gauge is dead on. I almost fell over.

Here's a picture a day or two before I officially finished it. It doesn't show the pattern really well, but you'll get the gist.


I've started on the first front piece, and have some delusional hope I might actually get to wear it this spring. And that it might fit.

I'm almost done with the Valentine's themed table mat.


The only thing that still needs done is the backing folded over and sewn to make the binding. There's a specific trick to miter the corners and I can't remember how to do it, and don't know exactly where my quilting basics book is, where the technique is explained. I'll find it, or look it up online. It's a pretty standard technique.

I've also made four blocks of the scrap quilt.


I'm really happy with how these are turning out. One of them has a kind of screwy color combination, but I made up my mind when I started this that I wasn't going to fuss with matching colors in the blocks. For one thing, it's a scrap quilt - that isn't necessary. That's one of the points of making a scrap quilt, not have to fuss with a lot of planning. It's supposed to be relaxing and laid back. I also know that even if I throw together a few ugly combinations, when the whole quilt is put together, it won't really be noticeable.

One of the reasons there isn't a lot of color variety here is that so far I don't have a lot of fabrics to work with. I started with just my stash, which was oddly sparse and monochrome. I know I had several huge boxes of fabric scraps when we moved, already trimmed into 5" squares in anticipation of just this type of quilt, but they're MIA at the moment. Maybe permanently, as I've been through pretty much everything here since we moved, and I've never seen them.

Then I went and bought a bunch of fat quarters (pieces of fabric that are 18" by ... I forget, but they're basically a quarter yard of fabric pre-cut) for the quilt, but in an effort to not go on a huge spending spree, I only bought some of what I'd need ... so, the color selection is still somewhat limited so far. The next time I go fabric shopping I'll pick up the rest, and make sure I mix in some more varied colors, then things should start popping.

Last but not least, I made a bead tonight.


It sounds like a big deal - I made A BEAD! But I actually planned this bead specifically for a necklace I've wanted to make for a couple months, so that's why it's getting the solo treatment. I like the way it turned out. Hopefully this weekend I'll be putting the piece together, and will have a finished picture. (with no reference, it's hard to tell, but it's not that huge - it's about 1" across; I just made it really close-up so you could see the detail).

I'm beyond ecstatic about clay now. It's so freaking fun!! I ordered a book I can't wait to get (it should be here tomorrow!) - it's how to make clay figures, from a woman who is flaming stellar at it. Well, don't take my word for it - her name is Katherine Dewey, and you can see her work here.

It might take years to get as good as that, but I have no doubt I could do it, if I put my mind to it and practice a lot. And that's what I want to do. I enjoy all the rest of this stuff, but this idea I have for clay - I'm just kind of consumed by it. I have a very specific first project planned, but I think I'll keep it a secret so you can be surprised when I post a picture of it (which may be a year from now, but ... baby steps. I am just learning).

This is all heading in the direction of opening the Etsy shop later this year. I know exactly what I want to sell. But I have some steps to get through before I'm ready for that. First, learn and practice and get good. Second, make some inventory. Then the shop.

I'm pretty psyched. This is probably the best mood I've been in for many, many years. All this making of stuff going on! All this creativity in the air! I've even forgotten to get S.A.D. this year, that's how amazing this is.

More Creativity and Homeowner Adventures

Today was cool. First, I bought a couple of the best tools I've ever owned.


I'm working on this quilted table mat thing for Valentine's Day, and decided to do stipple quilting in part of it. I absolutely adore stipple quilting, it's one of my favorite things about quilts ... but it takes some skill and practice to do. It involves quilting random squiggly patterns over an area, moving the quilt around free-hand. (You can see it a little bit in the pink-fabric parts of the mat in the picture). To do that you have to lower (or cover) the feed dogs so they are not guiding the material, and you can't use a regular presser foot, which creates too much drag on the fabric for the 'free' part of 'free motion.'

I tried doing it with no presser foot at all - it's possible, but very tricky. So today I went down to the sewing shop where I got my machine to see if they had a darning foot in stock. And they did, and it wasn't even expensive! A darning foot is ideal for free-motion quilting because it has a spring and bounces up and down with the needle, giving you tension when you need it (as the stitch is being made), then lifting up to allow you to freely move the quilt - all in the space of split seconds as you sew. It makes free-motion quilting so much easier. I still need some practice to make it prettier, but it's going pretty darn well for just learning.

The second, cheaper, and more surprising thing was the gloves. I'd heard of these, but always thought it was silly. Well, for the record, it is not. These gloves have little tiny rubber grippy dots all over the palms to help grip the fabric, making it far, far easier to move around. It's astoundingly easier, let me tell you. The difference was amazing.

Meanwhile, I am in the process of setting up a dedicated 'clay station,' and this is another wonderful thing.



I'm using my dad's desk which was already up in the Imaginarium. I happened to have a very large piece of relatively heavy glass sitting up there; I'm not sure where it came from, but I think - oh yes, I remember - it was a large cross-stitch picture I'd done for someone one time that I ended up getting back, and when I rented the dumpster awhile back I threw away the cross-stitch picture (long story, but it needed it, trust me) but salvaging the glass, thinking 'that might come in handy for something.' Well, it did - it makes a perfect work surface for clay. I've got a temporary piece of flannel under it to protect the desk, but it's working out pretty well, as it gives me a soft surface to lay things on to the side.

This is working out so great! I have it off my main work table, so I can sew without worrying about dragging fabric through clay projects in process. This is a perfect size for working with the clay, as I don't need a huge amount of room. It's just all around a great set-up. I can use the drawers for supplies. Just awesome.

So to celebrate, I made this.



I think it's going to be come a necklace, although I haven't worked out the details yet. I'm discovering that apparently my creation method of choice is "by the seat of my pants" - I don't know exactly what I'm going to make when I sit down to make something, I just start experimenting.

So I did a little quilting today, did a little clay, and in a few minutes it's band practice. All in all a pretty awesome day.

In the 'homeowner angst' department, I am pretty sure the reason the dining room is so cold is because there's enough of a gap at the edge of the front door for a nice icy breeze to actually blow through ... enough to create a large wedge of frost on the latch plate.





I went to Home Despot today and picked up some weatherstripping, but unfortunately it can't be installed until it's over 40 degrees. Well, that's no damned help now, but eventually I'll get it fixed. Fortunately the stuff only cost about $5, so no great waste if I happen to get a new door before I get it installed (unlikely, but possible). We could always use it on the door into the garage, which I haven't checked, but probably has the same problem.

Slowly, we'll seal up the little leaks around here and get this place warmed up. Most of the house is fine, there's just this dining room and kitchen that get so cold - the dining room because of the door and the fact that there's only crawl space under it, and the kitchen because of the garage door and the fact that what's under it is the unheated workshop. There are things to do about all of that, just ... haven't gotten around to it yet.

Off to feed the Poo and then band practice.

Yes, I'm A Freak - It's Blogapalooza

I was in the mood to post recently, but didn't really have anything to say. I was looking over my page, and noticed what a long list of categories I have. And it came to me ... I'll do the annual (?) Category Update, with a little blurb about each thing on the list.

Okay - I suppose the 'blather' category can come at the end (if the middle doesn't cover it).

In knitting news: I went back to work on the sweater this week. Hopefully I'll keep steadily at it, and maybe get it done by ... umm, spring? Sigh. Oh well. I wasn't too keen on the last pair of socks I started, so I may scrap them and start a new pair. I decided some time earlier this year that life's too short and uncertain to waste time on projects I've truly lost interest in. It's a hobby - for fun. Not something (else) I have to force myself to do.

I haven't thought about whether I'm doing any Christmas knitting this year, but if I am, I'd better get busy planning that.

SCA: This is the time of year that my post-Pennsic glow (if there was one) is waning, and I start forgetting about the whole thing till next year. Bad idea. This is the very time of year to keep motivated on long-term projects, and if I did, I'd be very happy with myself next year. So I'm going to plan to work on some of my projects at least once a month throughout the winter. Some of the things I want to do:

• make some more (better) garb


• decorate the garb I have - embroidery and such


• make my tent cover


• make a new top for my shade pavilion


• hmm, I'm sure there are some more things, but that's a good start

Gardening: Well, I started strong this year, but was disappointed in my follow-through. But the good news is, since I decided to start treating gardening as work-in-progress, as an experiment of sorts, I'm not too angsty about it. I learned a lot from this year. I lost steam about mid-summer, and didn't maintain my plants and things well. I especially lost it after Pennsic - I stopped watering things, and being August, it kind of did them in. Nothing really ever recovered. I also didn't plan my fall plantings as I'd have liked - I'd wanted to plant some of these gorgeous mums I'm now seeing at the stores, but I didn't plan a space for them, so I don't know where to put them. And I wanted to plant some bulbs for spring flowers, which I also haven't done (although I don't think it's too late for that). There are still some things I need / want to do before serious bad weather - mark where my perennials are, so I don't disturb them next spring when I want to start digging around in the flower beds; prune the roses; trim the shrubs out front; clean out the planters; and clean up the pond. Those things I hope to do soon, to at least get prepared for next season.

Weaving: I haven't done any weaving in way over a year. But it's something I'm still very interested in. I'd like to continue learning about tapestry weaving, but to do that now, I'd probably have to start over in my 'tutorial book' I bought last year. Well, it'll stay on the wish list for awhile yet.

Tyler: Tyler's doing great. He had a wonderful time on vacation, running around on the beach. He seemed to do well on the trip there and back, despite it's length. I just had him to the vet's on Saturday for a T4 check (testing his thyroid to see if his current medication needs adjusted), and they told me his levels were perfect, so his meds are fine. He's lost some weight though, and is getting kind of bony. I know part of that is aging (he'll be 14 next month!) but I'm going to work on bulking him up a little without letting him get too fat. I'm adding a third snack / meal to his day, consisting this week of a half-cup of whole wheat pasta and some mozzarella cheese. We'll see how that does for him. I'd also like to start taking him out more for exercise - as I mentioned, he did great on the trip, wanting to run around and seeming very energetic. Here he just lays about all the time, but I think he truly just gets bored because we don't do much - it's my fault we don't go for walks and outings anymore. As long as he still feels like it, keeping him active can only be good for him. Unfortunately, I waited till fall when the weather will be turning bad - but we tend to have relatively mild winters here, so hopefully if I ever get started, there will still be lots of exercise to be had in the coming months.

Embroidery: I have several embroidery projects I'd like to get back to. One is the embroidery on the pirate coat (a separate entry). Another is some embroidery on garb (mentioned in the SCA entry). I want to finish The Dread Reverend's Sea Chameleon favor, as the only person who has one right now is Berg, and I certainly thing the Commodore deserves one at least as much, if not more. Maybe over the winter months.

Quilting: This is one of those hobbies that I'd like to have time for, but never do. I mentioned in knitting that I'd learned the difficult lesson of giving up on projects that were no longer 'getting it' for me. I'm about to that point with the Tolkien quilt. It's at least 10 years old, and I've just really lost interest in it. I think if I could scrap it with a clean conscience, it would free me up to do some other useful things. I would like to make a scrap quilt; I got a book awhile back full of patterns for scrap quilts made with 5" squares (so it's easy - you cut all your material into 5" squares, then you can choose any pattern from the book and you're all set for it). I spent an entire weekend some time ago cutting all my large, accumulated fabric stash into 5" squares, and have added to it since - I could probably make several of these at this point. And this type of project (if I don't over-engineer it) could easily be completed in a couple of weekends. So perhaps that's something I'll think about getting done this winter as well.

Poi: I'm still practicing! I had a wonderful evening on the beach in North Carolina doing some solitary poi with glow-sticks on the poi balls. It was around sunset /dusk, and I was actually standing in the swash zone, with the income waves washing over my feet. It was magical. I plan to continue working on poi, although I haven't learned anything new in quite awhile.

Travel: Well, the NC trip was a success (despite some dark spots which I won't go into here). I cannot WAIT to go back. So my vacationing for this year went really, really well. The only thing I want to do differently next year is plan a spring vacation - whether it's NC or some place else - because as it stands now, my only two 'real' vacations fall at the beginning of August and the end of September - too close together, with that hideously long stretch of 10 months in between.

Shenanigans: We haven't had many of these for awhile. We had the one wild porch party this year, but that was about it. We have our annual Samhain party coming up, but I've been getting lazy and not really wanting to turn it into an overnighter / weekend event anymore. I'd rather have something more quiet. Wild raucous parties are fun - except for having to deal with the aftermath the next day. I wish someone else would host the party; then I wouldn't have to worry about that part of it.

Project: Pirate Coat: I've done nothing with it since before Pennsic, except wore it in the surf in North Carolina and got saltwater on the bottom. :o) Which was planned. I need to remove the temporarily-sewed-on cuffs and finish the embroidery on them; and then do the embroidery on the rest of the coat. I ought to think about starting that soon, because that's going to be a winter-long project.

Sewing: Yeah, I don't even know why this category is here. I don't make much of anything that wouldn't fall into the SCA or Quilting categories. Fact is, while I enjoy the idea of homemade things, I don't really much like sewing.

New House Project: While the original house that spawned this category is old water under the bridge, I haven't deleted the category because it's kind of a never-ending dream of mine. I'm back on it, at least temporarily. As I've said many times before, my house is simply too small for the people who reside here throughout the month. We desperately need a bigger house. The problem is (a) affording it, and (b) figuring out how to unload my house in this market. But I'm currently re-obsessed with a house I first noticed a year and a half ago, which is still on the market, recently changed realtors, and on which they've significantly dropped the price. I have an appointment to go see it tomorrow. I really love this house (what I know of it) and it would be perfect for us - 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, family room AND rec room; 2 acres; an in-ground pool; just gorgeous. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

And that brings us to recipes, which I've only ever posted once. That's only because it was my mom's recipe, and so not copyrighted. But I muck about with recipes all the time. Maybe over the winter I'll see fit to post some new ones.

Well, I guess that's about it - and certainly covers the blather. That's my life in a nutshell right now: desperately trying to figure out a way to afford a bigger house, and fit my many hobby dreams and wishes into my life. Winding down into the cocoon of autumn, and thinking a lot. But that's a post for another time.

Here There Be Dragons

Today's progress ... the motif for the lower right corner of the central square. It's kind of hard to see - I'm discovering it's hard to take good pictures of quilted stuff. Maybe when the weather warms up and I can take it outside, I can get better pictures.

I drew this out freehand on some tissue paper, using in part one of Tolkien's own drawings of dragons. It's kind of a weird looking dragon (my fault, not Tolkien's!), but I wasn't going for entirely realistic and detailed. I wanted something dragon-shaped, and skewed to fill the space. Kind of like Celtic zoomorphic animals, which don't look like anything they're supposed to represent, and are twisted in all kinds of odd ways to fill a certain shape.

After I drew it on the tissue paper, I could have basted or pinned the tissue paper to the quilt and quilted right on my drawn lines, but I didn't want to do it that way, so I cut it out, held it on the quilt and traced around it with my handy-dandy disappearing ink marker. I think this works out as a wonderful way to mark out quilting motifs ... especially since, like I said, I don't plan much in advance, but as I go. During the time I have to work on the quilt, I spend half of it just staring at it, because that is what gives me ideas as to what I want next, where I want it, what will balance what's already there.

Of course, I'm new at this, and hopefully I'll learn and get better as I go along. I'm not really happy with the watermelon pupil, but ... eh. It's okay, and I suspect the rest of the quilt will more than make up for that slight error in judgment. At least, I hope the reality lives up to my vision.

I discovered another wonderful thing about the disappearing ink marker ... I can experiment with designs by drawing them right on the quilt, because if I don't like them, they'll disappear in a few minutes. It's like having a quilting Etch-A-Sketch.

And it's official ... I'm completely hooked on this!! I realized, although I've been interested in quilting all my life, I've never really gotten around to making a complete quilt, with actual quilting in it. I don't know why - lack of time, lack of space, too many other hobbies vying for attention. Many years ago I started making my first quilt, a queen-sized quilt with blocks in some type of star pattern (I forget which one) as a Christmas present for my mom. I did it all in browns, peaches, and tans, because my mom's favorite colors were brown and orange. The top turned out beautifully.

Then a wonderful thing happened. I got divorced. However, it wasn't so wonderful for the quilt, because I moved from a house with a spare bedroom in which I had a complete sewing room set up, to a tiny efficiency apartment in which the quilt, spread out, could have carpeted my entire living room/kitchen.

I hadn't even gotten the back on it yet, and trying to work on it in that tiny apartment was a disaster. To sum up, the back ended getting put on all skewed, and I even had tucks and folds in it; and I gave up on trying to quilt it, and instead just tied it with orange yarn. It was a nice top that deserved better. Although, that quilt still lives over in my dad's basement ... maybe someday I could remove the ties, take off the back, and fix it.

The next time I actually finished a quilt was a couple of years ago, when I made a lap-sized strip quilt. The little blocks were only about 2" and I just quilted in all the seams, nothing more.

Now that I've discovered this amazing thing of quilting pictures and designs into a quilt ... well. I guess I'm going to have to start learning to live on less sleep.

Free At Last!! Or, the Sunflower of Sauron

I did it!! Or at least, I'm doing it. I'm learning freehand quilting by machine! See? See? That was all done freehand on the machine. It's far from perfect, and I still need a lot of practice, but at least I'm making progress, and this isn't so hideous that it ruins the quilt or anything. I can live with this, and know I can improve.

This is the most amazing skill I can imagine. It opens up such a world of possibilities. Anything I can imagine in my mind, I can design into a quilt. We don't need no stinkin' templates! I don't have to plan and mark out an entire quilt top before I can ever put it together. I can brainstorm, design, mark and quilt all on the fly (how I work best).

After contemplating that big open ring for awhile this morning, I decided I knew what I wanted to quilt into it - the lidless eye of Sauron. Groovy. So I drew out some paper templates, marked the design off with my disappearing ink marker, and quilted away. It worked like a dream! The only thing I had to watch was the disappearing ink marker disappearing before I'd even gotten through quilting the motif I'd drawn. I think it had to do with my hands rubbing on it, because in places where I didn't need to touch it, it didn't fade as fast. I've heard of something called quilter's gloves, maybe I ought to check into what those are. Or maybe any rubber dishwashing-type gloves would work.

Of course, my quilting designs on the fly may not be genius level. Once I quilted the eye, I remembered how we used to draw these in the sand during Mootstocks on the Oregon coast, and then add little flamey things around them. So I decided I'd quilt little flamey things around the eye. When I got done doing that, and took a good look at it, I thought, "Great. It looks like a sunflower."

We won't even talk about how I turned the pupil into a watermelon.

Forgive the hideous colors in that picture ... I took it without flash under only a regular light bulb, anything brighter washed out the quilting design.

Despite it's oddness, I'm still really happy with how this is going ... and with the ideas I'm getting for the rest of the quilt.

More Tolkien Quilt Brainstorming

I've been thinking a lot about the Tolkien quilt, getting psyched for my upcoming weekend chance to work on it again. I think that I originally made it relatively 'plain' because I intended to do something fancy in those blocks, or at least the plain green ones. But since getting it back out again, and just wanting to finish it, I was trying to figure out what now to do with all those plain blocks, that would look nice, but not take forever.

But the more I think on this, the less I want to just rush through it to get it done. For starters, the whole reason I began a Tolkien quilt was in honor of Tolkien's work (especially Lord of the Rings). I mean, that book was a major, integral part of my life. I am sure I would not be going too far in saying I wouldn't be who I am today had I not been influenced by LotR.

I first read Lord of the Rings when I was only 12. I read it several times a year for several years, then every single year (always right after Christmas I'd get in the mood to read it again) for many years. I haven't read it straight through now for about 10 years, but that was a lot of Tolkien reading over the years. It influenced me so much growing up, and throughout my life. It has always been a haven I could escape to whenever the need arose. It's a place I love more than any I've ever seen (well, with the possible exception of Oregon, but then Oregon is the Shire).

Why, then, should I fluff through this project just to move on to something else? So I am going to rethink my work on this project. I want to go back to making this something special as I initially envisioned, and create something that at least maybe will come close to capturing the passion I have for Tolkien and his work.

I had some good ideas this week, but unfortunately they involved applique. Since I've already put the quilt together, and quilted the center motif, I'm not really sure I want to try to start a massive applique project on it now.

So I'm conjuring up other ideas. I'm thinking of some pretty fancy quilted designs in the plain blocks, ones that represent some of my favorite parts of Tolkien's world. Granted, I'm going to have to do some serious practice on machine freehand quilting to pull off what I am now envisioning, but ... so? I can do that.

I'm also considering how I might add some embroidery.

You know, I better think this through carefully ... I haven't quilted too much yet, it's not too late ... I could still take the pins out and do work on individual blocks, I think ... ??

On the flip side, I don't want to overcomplicate the project so much that I actually never do get it done.

So ... we'll see what I decide and/or come up with this weekend, but it's going to be more than just a quick throwing it together. The Book of Kells will always be there, when I'm ready for it.

In other news ... heat wave. It's about 40 degrees this morning. After waking up to 5 degrees yesterday, with it never going much about 20, this is downright balmy. Today I have to make a pan of lasagna (to freeze, to have something on hand at my dad's for emergencies, like Thursday when my dinner plans fell apart due to eggplant gone bad), take dad his groceries and make us dinner, and see if he needs any laundry done. After that, I don't know ... there's an Irish music session over the border in Sharon, Pennsylvania tonight that the Dread Reverend wants to go to. He's been telling me I "should" get out of the house more (I tend to get hermitish in the winter), but in truth, I'd rather just come home and quilt. Is that so wrong??

So I haven't decided what I'm doing about that yet. But right now, for a few hours, I'm going back to work on the Tolkien quilt!

A 'Meh' Day; Hope for the Weekend

The big snowstorm didn't really happen ... not here anyway. We had some serious little squalls yesterday, but no real accumulation, and apparently it didn't do much of anything last night. That's okay ... it's not like I wanted a big blizzard. Like I said, if it doesn't get me out of work, then what's the point?

I did a little more work on the log cabin last night, although not much. I was feeling really 'meh' all evening, I don't really know why. Maybe it's just the end of the week blahs. I start out fresh, after my relaxing Sunday, but as the week progresses I get steadily more run down. Friday is both the best and the worst ... I have always detested grocery shopping, and for a long time wouldn't even go to the store unless I absolutely had to. I'd just eat a lot of fast food, and pick up a few things at the convenience store on the corner. At some point I decided that just wasn't going to keep working (if it ever had), so I started going to the store a bit more regularly. But since I've been shopping and cooking for my dad, I have to go every week, no excuses. After experimenting around a bit, Fridays ended up being the best (only) day to go. So while I dread the shopping trip, and getting all those groceries into the house, then sorted, put away, and repacked to take some to dad's, ... still, at least it's Friday. Mixed feelings about this day.

My boyfriend has his kids this weekend, too. He gets them every other weekend, and they're here from Friday evening through Sunday evening. It's always kind of interesting. It's taken me a long time (and sometimes I'm still not there) to adjust to two active kids being around (they're 3 and 8). I don't have kids, never wanted kids, and have usually managed to avoid them all my life. So it was quite a transition for me. On the up side, that's one of the things that motivated me to finally get my sewing / hobby area upstairs cleaned up and useable again ... it gives me a place to go, relatively quiet, out of the stream of incessant activity downstairs. That works out well for everyone, I think.

So starting tomorrow, hopefully, I'll be back to work on the quilt. I may not wait till Sunday, I may squeeze in some work on it Saturday evening. In a previous post I mentioned "wondering" if there was some kind of paper I could use to quilt the designs in the blocks, then get rid of afterwards. Duh. Not only is there some kind, there are all kinds. Kinds you tear away, kinds that dissolve in water. I've seen them mostly suggested for use in applique and embroidery, but I don't see why they couldn't be used to quilt a design on a block as well. So at least when I get to that point, there's hope for how to get it done.

The Book of Kells quilt, on the other hand, is going to involve an excessive amount of applique. I mentioned that except for the fluke of the Tolkien quilt center, I've had no luck with applique. I kept thinking that there was probably some magic trick to it all that I hadn't learned yet. I've spent the week researching as many applique methods as I could find online, and discovered one thing: there is no secret magic trick that makes it a cakewalk. I'm just going to have to stock up on some patience, and be willing to practice and work at it, if I want it to turn out nice.

Oh, larger pieces without any tiny, odd shapes don't worry me ... those I know I can do. It's tiny pieces, with little points or long thin bits that concern me. Because I suspect the Kells quilt is going to have a lot of those. And those are the ones I'm just going to have to buckle down and work harder at.

Another thing I need to seriously practice is freehand machine quilting. I've been thinking, and it looks to me like it's going to be the easiest way to quilt the blocks in Tolkien, and most of Kells. I can't keep having to turn the whole quilt all the time, I didn't get a machine with a big enough ... harp? I think it's called a harp, the circular area to the right of the needle in the sewing machine, where you have to stuff your quilt through when you're sewing on it. This one's okay (bigger than my last machine), but not nearly big enough to make that an easy task. But despite what a horrible job I did on the freehand quilting around the center motif last weekend, I do think, with practice, I can get the hang of that ... and it looks like becoming an invaluable skill.

Well, at least talking about my weekend projects cheered me up a bit. Now all I have to do is get through today.

I don't know nuthin' 'bout makin' no quilts.

Ugh - the only thing worse than Monday morning is Monday morning with a hangover. The Dread Reverend and I stayed up till some obscene hour last night drinking rum and playing poker - well, he was teaching me to play poker, I'd never played before. Now I'm paying for it with a whopping headache. Work ought to be interesting today.

So, the quilt adventure yesterday. Silly me - I thought quilting was a piece of cake, albeit cut with very precise corners. Yesterday was enlightening.

The first thing I decided to do, after getting the quilt all pinned together, was quilt around the "JRRT" and ring symbols in the middle. Not thinking this through, I attached the 'walking foot' to the machine, folded up the side of my quilt, and slid it into place. So far so good ... till I got to the first turn in that design. I made it all the way down one side before I realized that was just stupid ... having to constantly stop and turn, moving that whole quilt around, was never going to cut it.

I knew what freehand quilting was, I even tried it once, long ago, on a scrap quilt square made just for that purpose. Freehand quilting is when you drop the feed dogs so nothing is moving the material in any direction, and in my case I had to remove the presser foot entirely since I didn't have one that would work for this purpose. Then, as you press the foot pedal and begin to sew, you have to move the material around manually to determine the size of the stitches and where they go. The good thing about this is that you can stitch in any direction at any time, just by moving the material in the direction you want to go.

The bad news is, it's freaking hard. It takes a lot of skill, I can tell you. By the time I got all the way around the "JRRT" symbol and both sides of the ring, I was just starting to have an idea that I might some day get the hang of it. There is some pretty wobbly stitching around those designs, and it's not pretty work.

But I did get through it, and that part is done. I should have practiced more before trying it on the quilt, but I've pretty much already decided this quilt itself is going to be the 'practice,' and it's going to be a 'utility quilt' - or a utiliquilt, if you will. It'll be the one that gets dragged out in the yard in the summer, and whatnot ... so using it for practice is okay. Besides, after 10 years, I'm kind of sick of it and just want to get it put together in some useable fashion.

Next I'm just straight stitching around the larger outer square, then in all the seam lines. After that I'll get to the blocks.

The blocks are going to be interesting. I have no quilting lines marked on them yet. In fact, that's the reason I put the thing away for so many years and quit working on it ... I couldn't find a method I liked to transfer the designs onto the fabric, and gave up in frustration for a long time.

Initially I wanted to create my own quilting designs for the squares, something with a Tolkienish flavor. I tried cutting out my own template - that was a minor disaster. I don't have that kind of patience. Then I tried drawing a design in black Sharpie on a piece of paper, then using my light box to trace the design onto a square. That would have worked on the light colored squares, except that I couldn't seem to find any kind of marking pencil I was happy with.

But nothing at all worked on the dark squares. Those are dark green with a busy light green flower print. The stupidest material to pick if you want to draw on it. Dark pencil doesn't show up in the dark green, and light doesn't show up in the light green.

When I decided to go back to work on it, I decided I was going to put it all together, get the basic quilting in the seams done, then decide what to do about the blocks. I figured having the whole thing together might inspire me to come up with something, finally, for the blocks.

I bought a disappearing ink marker for the light squares. I love those things - they really work. They have a nice, sharp tip for precise lines, and they really do disappear in a few hours. So you can't mark an entire quilt in advance with them, but you can mark one square at a time, just as you're getting ready to quilt it.

I still don't know what I'm going to do for the dark squares. If they had white disappearing ink markers, that would be grand, but all I saw were purple and blue. I wonder if I can mark my quilting design on some type of paper or stabilizer or something, quilt right through it, then tear it away. That's probably common knowledge to 'real' quilters, but me, just learning, I don't know about those things yet. I guess I'll be finding out.

The story behind the quilt. In 1995 I joined an online group comprised of Lord of the Rings and Tolkien fans. We exchanged email, and met every Sunday evening in a chat room, discussing Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, and life in general. The following year we decided we'd like to meet in person, so about 8 or 9 of us made a trip to the Oregon coast, where we rented cottages and hung out for a week. It sounds weird, but it was a blast ... I'd never had so much fun in my life. I laughed so hard the whole week, my sides and stomach actually hurt by about Thursday.

Anyway, I came home so jazzed that I decided to make a Tolkien quilt. But due to many and varied difficulties, it kept languishing, never getting finished. Sometimes I'd get it out for awhile, but never really make any progress, and then put it away again. Now, 10 1/2 years later, I'm finally finishing it.

I love the "JRRT" and ring applique in the center. I'm still surprised at what a good job I did on that. I had to draw the "JRRT" out freehand on a piece of poster board to make the template. The applique went pretty well, too. That was my first attempt at applique, and it must have been dumb beginner's luck, because I've tried applique since then, and gave up, pounding my head on the wall in frustration.

However, I don't know what I was thinking with the rest of the quilt. It seems rather boring to me now. I think I left the rest of the quilt design simple, with nothing but large squares, because I had in mind to quilt (or possibly embroider) fancy designs in each - so the 'fanciness' would come from the embellishment, not from the quilt design itself. I've long since forgotten whatever ideas I had in that direction. I've designed two motifs, one for the light squares, one for the dark squares. I may still use those, or I may rethink the whole thing and decide to do something different. I'll make it up as I go along, I guess.

What prompted me to finally get it done is this insanity of the Book of Kells quilt. I really wanted to make that, but didn't want to start another quilt when I had two unfinished ones. I also thought that, even though it was going to be complex and I knew I had limited experience with quilting, with enough patience, I could still manage it. I can see it's going to be quite a challenge. It'll be interesting.

Ahh, Sunday; New Sewing Machine; Bad Dreams

Even better than Saturday mornings are Sunday mornings ... the perfect day. I don't have to wake up to an alarm, I don't have to be anywhere. I sit around as long as I like drinking coffee, getting my morning nicotine fix, and playing on the computer, before diving into a day consisting of nothing I don't really want to do.

I thought for several years that it wouldn't be too much to ask to have one day a week where I don't have to get dressed, leave the house, or do anything that constitutes a 'chore, responsibility, or obligation.' Just one day a week ... that has to be reasonable. But my cursed Protestant work ethic upbringing made it extremely difficult to just do something "fun" for a whole day, without throwing some obligation or chore into the mix ... I felt wanton and useless. It wasn't until about a month ago I was finally able to put this theory into practice with a clear conscience.

I got extraordinarily busy in the late fall, when my 81-year-old father got out of the hospital for the 5th or 6th time this year, and began needing a lot more help than previously. He still lives alone, and I live about 7 minutes away. Although he's asked me about moving in, it's not an option right now, for reasons I'll save for another time.

One of the things he needed a lot of help with was meals ... due to his health problems, he needs to be on a very low sodium diet. He won't/can't cook for himself, and doesn't like frozen meals or the local home-delivered meals service, and so was eating out in restaurants every day. But that wasn't keeping his sodium down (which is what in part kept landing him in the hospital). After the last hospital stay, I knew he needed to be eating healthier food. I tried cooking up a week's worth of meals in advance, and freezing them, but that didn't work out well for either one of us. So I started going over every night and cooking a fresh, healthy dinner for him.

It worked great in one way - he began to feel a lot better, and his health problems have stabilized, keeping him out of the hospital for awhile now. So, yay for good food. But the down side was, going over there every night was getting exhausting. As he began to improve, we struck a happy medium. I go over there four days a week and cook for him, and the other three I leave him some type of one-dish meal that he can heat in the microwave (spaghetti, lasagne, soup or stew, or this chicken-and-rice dish I made up myself, stuff like that).

Anyway, after doing a lot of extra stuff at his house throughout the week, I was finally able to 'justify' taking my Sunday all to myself, and it has been wonderful. Heaven. Fantastic. So the new rule is, I don't leave the house or do anything I don't really, really want to do on Sundays. So far it's working out beautifully!

Usually what I want to do on Sunday is some of my hobby stuff I don't really have time for during the week, like working on a quilt. And now, this week, I can do that. We got the new sewing machine yesterday!! It's a Jenome 525s, and I love it - well, what I've seen of it so far. I haven't had time to do much with it. The saleslady gave us a good demonstration - it's so quiet! It sews so smooth! It went from sewing thin gauzy material to several layers of heavy denim without even a twitch ... I'm going to love having a decent sewing machine, not a piece of crap, for perhaps the first time in my life.

Yesterday after bringing it home, I didn't have time to do more than take it upstairs, set it up, and play with some decorative stitches for about 5 minutes. But today ... today I have the whole day to go upstairs and play to my heart's content. And I will be doing that very shortly. Just as soon as this coffee kicks in and I wake up enough not to sew my fingers together or something that would make knitting difficult.

In other news, I've had bad dreams for the last two days, and I'm wondering about it. I have the occasional bad dream, but nothing too frequent - before now. Yesterday while taking a nap I had a disturbing dream, and last night I had two more. These aren't wake-up-screaming nightmares, they're the kind where just bizarre, creepy things happen that almost could happen in real life (except that bit where someone I know in a dream suddenly turns into someone else), but that it would be extremely disturbing if it did.

I'm trying to figure out what might be causing it ... I haven't started any new medications (I don't take anything except a vitamin), I haven't been eating weird food. I didn't think there was anything particularly disturbing on my mind lately.

Maybe the sewing machine is possessed ... these didn't start till I brought it home. Hmmm. That'll bear watching.

I'm off to sew. Later this afternoon I'll post a picture of the quilt in progress, an ode to Tolkien.



Later ... as promised (6:45 p.m.)


Here's the quilt sammich, all pinned together (which only took about 2 hours I could have been sewing). More on the details tomorrow. (Love, love, love the new machine!!)

Saturday - Full of Potential

Saturday morning ... aaaahhhh. It's my second favorite time of the week (second only to Sunday morning). Saturdays are busy days. If I have any errands to do, they get done on Saturday morning. I detest shopping as a rule, and never do any of the generic "Let's go shopping!" type. I buy everything at the grocery store, the local around-the-corner drug store, or online.

Rather, Saturday mornings are reserved for any specific things I have to pick up, and usually they are things I really want and am looking forward to getting ... like a new book at the bookstore, treats for Tyler (my dog) at the pet store, or fabric or yarn at the craft store for one of my many projects.

So it's usually fun 'running around.' This morning my boyfriend and I are going to the sewing machine repair place to pick out a new sewing machine - that I'm looking forward to. I'd rather not spend the money, but it has to be done, so I'm not going to worry about it, and instead concentrate on getting something nice that's (mostly) within my budget. My former sewing machine, a little Singer for which I only paid $95 at Wal-Mart, finally bought the farm after 2 1/2 years of relatively heavy use. And this is the very time of year I need to be gearing up again to a lot of sewing, so I can't not have a sewing machine.

I mentioned in my virgin post my involvement in the SCA. For those who don't know, it's a medieval re-creation group with members almost the world over. Lots of people do lots of different things, but for me and my little group, we attend several local events throughout the year where we camp, and do a variety of medieval-esque activities (and some not-so medieval ones), wearing medieval garb the entire time. During camping events there are lots of things to do ... classes to take to learn a skill that was practiced in the middle ages, and "fighting" (mock battles, although they are only mock in that no one gets killed - they are not staged or choreographed in any way), to name just two. We also play a lot of music, and spend a lot of time sitting around campfires drinking rum. Generally a good time is had by all.

But garb is like sex ... you can never have too much, and there's always something new you want to try. So a large chunk of just about every year is given over to making new garb. And, there are always other projects to work on ... this year I want to make new sheet wall panels for our camp (panels of material, decorated, hung up between poles, to delinate the boundaries of our camp), and other camp-enhancing projects.

In addition to all that, I'm determined this year to get back to a hobby I've tried several times before, but never managed to make enough time for - quilting. I have this insane idea to make a quilt based on one of the panels from the Book of Kells - specifically, the particular page on this website (scroll all the way to the bottom to see it). But before I can do that, I want to finish two other quilts I started in the past. And before I can do any of that, I need a sewing machine. In fact, I was working on one of those quilts a few weeks ago when my sewing machine died.

As if I didn't have enough projects, I started a new knitting project last night - a Log Cabin blanket from the Mason-Dixon Knitting book. I've been working on my Celtic Icon sweater for almost a year (yeah, I'm slow), but sometimes I need a break from the intense concentration of working all that cabling. I need something simple for awhile. I made a cotton dishcloth this week with a skull and crossbones on it, but that went too quickly. I decided to raid my stash and see what I had for a Log Cabin blanket, and found enough to make it worth starting.

So that's my day ... go buy a sewing machine, go over and cook my dad dinner (pork chops, roasted potato wedges, and some veggie), then come home. My boyfriend, aka The Dread Reverend, has a gig tonight at Callahan's Irish Pub here in town, so I'll either go to that (with knitting), or stay home and play with the new sewing machine.

Tomorrow - pictures of the current quilt-in-progress, a Tolkien quilt.