New Additions

There have been a number of new things added to our home, none of which poop, for which I am eternally grateful.

First new addition was a fridge.  Our old fridge, which was original to the house, circa 1999, finally crapped out.  The freezer was at frost mode and the fridge was slightly cooler than room temperature.  It gave me the opportunity to throw almost everything out, and even after putting all the stuff back into the fridge (about 2 coolers' worth), it still looked empty.

This quilt block was started over the Pirate Retreat weekend, but I wasn't able to finish putting it together until a couple days ago.  It's from the Harry Potter Project of Doom series--the Monster Book of Monsters.  I'm not entirely happy with the paper piecing assembly, but I think it falls into the "good enough" category.  I had to take apart and re-assemble several of the seams, so I'm not going to freak out if the black pages of the book don't line up perfectly.  The original had white pages, but I didn't like the way it looked.  I wanted to give it more depth and really make the yellow teeth pop.


The guild does a monthly charm swap.  This month's fabric theme was batiks, so I bought six yards in some bright, cheerful colors, and chopped them into 6" squares.  I wasn't able to make it to the meeting, unfortunately, but my new friend, Dorene, picked them up for me.  We'll get together for lunch next week so I can fetch my swapped pieces.  I'm looking forward to getting them!  Six yards of squares will make a pretty sizable quilt, especially if you add a couple yards of black sashing!

Then the quilt will look a little bit like this one!  This is Lauri's stained glass quilt that's on my frame now.  Originally we talked about quilting it in a shiny silver thread, but now I'm thinking it'll look nicer if I do it in an all-over medium purple.  The back is purple, too.

At the guild meeting last month, I picked up this charming little quilt to sew together for their charity program.  It has polar fleece for the back, so no batting is necessary, and quickly stitched some hearts and swirls into it.


I have another bunch of fabric here to make a boy's quilt--they're always short on masculine quilts.  I thought it was another quick-to-quilt thing, but it turns out it's all fabric...it needs to be pieced.  Hmmm...extra challenge.

I have gotten several commissions for beads, weaving and quilting in the last couple of weeks.  I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment.  But...I gotta get some laundry and dishes and other cleaning done before the Thanksgiving holiday.  Toodles!

Patchwork Pirates INVADE!

I know that I haven't done much writing for some time--it's been busy and I haven't done anything remarkably interesting, but I'll catch you up on some of the basics this last month.  Kelly, Tom and I went to a couple Sounders games.  Tom traveled down from Bellingham to see the games and will be joining us next year in our Gang Green (Gangrena, as Daniel likes to call us--he's fluent in Portugese).  In at least one of these games, he had to buy a separate ticket away from our group, but was lucky enough to find a seat just a few rows behind us.

We often grab dinner at a nearby food court.  Clearly, English is a second language and proofreading is an afterthought.  I think that perhaps it was merely an issue with punctuation:  "All Employees Must Wash; Wash Hands Thou Roughly Before Returning to Work [sayeth the Lord]."


I've continued doing a little Geocaching now and again.  I found this lovely log covered with mushrooms.  It looks like a woodland fairy condominium.

I also found some of these really cool looking mushrooms, which I think are Candy Caps (Lactarius rubidus), which are edible.  Otherwise, they might be Jack o'lanter mushrooms which are poisonous.  Not going to pick them and find out...

Made some beads for a couple different people.  I promised to make 40 of them for a Kingdom gift to the Royals that will be attending the big camping event in the summer.  I've done this a couple times before in years past.  It's not very difficult, it doesn't cost more than a few bucks for my materials, and it's a great way to practice bead-making skills.  Here's me making the bead hot with the torch--you can't see the flame, but you can see the glass glowing.  I have everything I need here:  my computer, a cuppa tea, some chocolate, glass, lighter, mandrils, and a bucket of vermiculite to cool the bead slowly.  I was able to complete 9 of them that night, including these 7:




And these two, which I was trying to create a "dragon scale" pattern on the glass, which mostly worked.  I have to ask Bekah to demonstrate her technique since I suspect it could be done with more ease and consistency.



Then I posted those pictures and got a commission from a lady by the name of Jadwiga.  She said she wanted 3 beads, but I made six, figuring that she could have her choice of her favorite 3 or all of them, should she decide that 3 was not enough. :)



I got a call a couple days ago from a lady who said she had a quilt from her Grandmother that she needed to have quilted, and we made arrangements for her to come by and drop it off.  This gorgeous piece of work arrived at my house!!  It's all pinned together, so I will have my work cut out for me taking it apart and racking it up on my machine, as well as checking it for open seams.  I already found one, so I may whip stitch that one closed and any others that I find.


Early on Saturday, Lauri and Linda arrived together and we began sewing up a storm.  A few hours later, Sharon and her daughter arrived just a few minutes after Jean.  While Jean isn't a quilter, she worked on a knitting project while the rest of us cranked out some quilt blocks.  I was able to finish putting this quilt top together, which is made entirely out of scraps and measures 98" square.  It needs just a few more inches for borders to make it big enough for a king size bed, and then it'll be ready for quilting!  I had two people say that they want the quilt already, and I have tons more scraps to make more of these if I want...and I may just do that.  I may get a commission from them yet...although the cost on it is prohibitive for most.

Terrible picture, but here's Jeanie and I trading places.  Lauri called us Mutt & Jeff.


Went out for dinner at the Mexican place--I was driving, but Lauri and Sharon enjoyed macho margaritas...



Then stopped by the fabric store, only to discover that it was closed, so we went to the 7-11 instead, got a couple scratch tickets and played with the hats.  I am the walrus.  Sharon is a lemur.

After I finished the quilt top, I pulled out the Harry Potter Project of Doom that I've been working on over the last many months and began working on the next couple of blocks, numbers 11 and 12.  This was a difficult one--white owl on a cream background.  I'm going to have to do some kind of outline stitch on the bird to make it stand out.  Also, I goofed on the eye color, so I may carefully pick out the seams and reverse applique some gold fabric into place.

This block is a series of books with a feather quill.  I re-arranged the order of the pieces so I wouldn't have the yellow quill leaning against the yellow book--I didn't think that through entirely.  Later, I thought maybe, in honor of Rita Skeeter, I should have done the quill in acid green.  Heck, I may just print up the pattern again and start over...or not.


The girls got to play together all day and night--they always have such a great time together.  We decided that they are the exact same height now, even though their ages are 19 months apart.  They truly are two of a kind!



Jean didn't stay the night--she left around 11 pm Saturday--but the others had cots and inflatable mattresses set up around downstairs.  I stumbled upstairs around 12:15 a.m. for my 8 hours.

We started up again in the morning after I cooked up some pancakes for everyone--mostly the kids.  We made a trip to the fabric store around 2:30 pm where I got batiks for a swap for the guild meeting next week.  I have to wash and dry them before I can cut--batiks are infamous bleeders!  I feel like I'm way ahead by getting the fabrics organized a week in advance rather than at the last minute like I usually do.

Everyone packed up by 3 pm Sunday to head back home.  We had a great time and got a lot done.  I should have gotten more pictures...maybe I'll be able to post more after I get some sent to me by the others.

HP and the Sunshine Band

The sun has broken free and is giving us that blessed combination of bright skies, cool air, and complaining kids.  Complaining because they need to play outside when the weather is good, but they don't wanna.  They claim it's raining but it's nearly cloudless out there.  Interestingly, it's the neighbor kids who are complaining louder than mine.

I finished three more HP blocks for the quilt.  First a bunch of books on the shelf.  Woo.  I'm looking forward to stitching all the labels on all the books--not that I really enjoy the embroidery, but it'll be fun to figure out which books have which titles.


I wasn't entirely happy with the fabric choices I had--I really needed a light grey for the wings of the snitch--you can barely see them against the background, and the paper of the books is almost the same color as the background, too.


Finally, there is the shelf of identical books.  I think these must be part of a series--Standard Book of Spells, books 1 through 6.  He never did go back for his 7th year, so I'm thinking that's what they'll be. This is the last block of the second row, which means I'm officially 1/3 done with the blocks.


Next up:  Hedwig.  It's another one of those blocks with some 58 pieces to it.

However, I'm thinking now might be a good time to catch up on some holiday plans.  Gift bags for the in-laws & beloved friends.

In the Wake

I went to the Thursday night guild meeting and picked up a couple of packets for the raffle quilt they are assembling.  I got kits #11 and 12, which are part of the pointy border areas that go around the edge of this spectacular batik quilt.  It's all paper pieced, which I have gotten into a little recently...see posts on Harry Potter Quilt of Insanity.  Here I am sewing the fabric onto the paper.  OK, the paper is just used as a sewing guide, since the fabrics have to be sewn to each other with at least 1/4" seam.  You first sew pieces 1 and 2 together, lining them up behind the paper (holding it up to the light...).  Stitch and flip, finger-pressing open, then add piece 3.  Repeat to end.  The paper will later get torn away and the pieces will look like this!



OK, not exactly like this.  The extra bits have to be trimmed up around the edge, but the instructions said to leave that to the assembly team to complete.  They don't want to risk anyone accidentally cutting into the main part of the design...they probably don't have extras of this paper pattern.

But before I started these, I made one more HP block from the kit.  It took a LOOOOONG time to make this one with all the little bitty pieces.  I turned on a movie when I started and finished about the same time as the movie.  Seriously.  I think I like using this box as a photo box for the blocks...although I think I should probably press the blocks with an iron before photographing.  The books look a little lumpy.  I haven't decided if this is just an hourglass or if this is the Time Turner.  It's a bit big to hang around the neck, so I'm going to say hourglass.  I can't imagine Hermione tucking this down her robes without looking...suspicious...or in need of the hospital wing for an engorgement charm gone wrong.

Since then, I started another block of books, but only have 1/3 of it done.

After the Friday shooting, it was difficult to focus on much, so I spent a great deal of the weekend just puttering around.  I finished the baby quilt on Saturday, despite having a broken stitch regulator.  I need to take the thing in to get fixed...hubby suggested that I just take the broken part in rather than hauling in the 70 lb. behemoth...a much less physically-taxing endeavor which I am in favor of.  Maybe I'll do that in the morning.

I also mailed out a bunch of Christmas cards, which I haven't done in three years.  In the process, I discovered that I was missing a great many addresses in my book, or had ridiculously outdated information.  A high school friend was still recorded under her ex-husband's name; cousins still listed at university addresses, even though they graduated years ago; spouses and children were missing completely...luckily I have most of them on Facebook, so was able to get new physical addresses for many--others haven't written back yet.  I sent out about 40 cards--one of them still went to the wrong address (I got the corrected version after it was already in the locked outgoing mail slot).  I could have sent more but I ran out of momentum and stamps, even after a store run to get more stamps.  I'll catch 'em next year.  Or in three years.

Santa, I am not.  As per usual, I'm making a mental note to make a list, and hoping I have the forethought to check that list twice, once I find it again after losing it...  I hope that we have a fairly balanced number of gifts for each of the kiddos and a good selection of toys and games, and I will have likely failed miserably at making sure that no one feels that someone was favored over someone else.

I hope at least that they'll think well of me when I'm old enough to go to the retirement home.

Prolific Weekend

I went through phases of lonliness this weekend, not having anyone to call up and say, "Hey, let's go get some dinner and see a movie!" or "GIRLS' NIGHT!"  The few that are close enough to call up were otherwise occupied, as could be expected during the holiday weekend.  My best buddies--my 'wives"--are too far away for a get-together.  Despite having lived here for five years now, I really don't have many girlfriends that I can call up and invite out for a girl-date.  I know lots of people, but few close friends nearby.  Sometimes things just click and it's like you've been friends forever, and you can call them up anytime and say, "Hey, let's go!" 

But I spent most of my free time sewing.  Because we will be coming home in the next day or two, I decided to bring my sewing machine home with the quilting stuff to get it out of the way.  We will probably have to make a couple trips as it is, so the less stuff we have to haul around, the better.  I got the Irish top finished a few days ago, so I brought that home, along with the Harry Potter blocks that I started.  You saw the first four blocks, and here are the next two:

Block 5:
This block's tipped book has better perspective than the other block that I altered, but it's just more boring books.  More embroidery of book titles later.  I stopped by JoAnn's today and picked up some embroidery needles and skeins of thread to do a bit of embroidery on the blocks tomorrow and Monday, assuming I'll have time to do so.  Purse project...I really need to find my Pigma pen to write the names of the books on the spines so I can embroider over them.  A list of the book titles are found here.

Block 6:

And the most recent block--three more books and what I suspect is a vial of Professor Snape's memory juices.  This may be the last block I make for a few days.  Gotta catch up on other things.

I finished arranging the pieces for Emma's One Block Wonder.  As I sat catching up on my TV shows recorded on my DVR from the week, I kept glancing over at the quilt pieces hanging on the design wall.  There were just a few of them that were out of place and it was bothering me, but I didn't have the time or energy to really look at it and figure out what was wrong.  Today, I saw a few pieces that really needed to be moved, so I shuffled them around. I think I'm finally satisfied with the arrangement.  These, of course, are just stuck to a flannel sheet; they still have to be sewn together.  To the right, a monster for Ben's monster quilt.

I kinda fumbled around, looking for something a little less mentally taxing than the Harry Potter blocks, and I saw this pile of Road to the White House blocks.  After counting them out, pairing them up, and sewing them together, I laid them out and discovered two things:  1) I mis-counted the blocks.  I thought I had 42.  I had 45.  2) I couldn't find a layout I liked that worked with the way I had sewn them together.  I messed around with the blocks and decided on a new layout--I tried ric-rac and diagonal stripes, but neither of them appealed to me.  Then I laid them out in this Around-the World style, which meant tearing the stitches out of about 8 or 10 seams.  When I laid them out in this more pleasing arrangement, I then realized I needed 4 more blocks.  Drat.  I found two red and two blue fat quarters that went well with the blocks I already had, so I cut up the fabrics and sewed four new blocks in about two hours.

I laid them out on my bed and assembled in sections and now the top is done! It needs a couple borders for the drop on the sides of the mattress--I'm thinking I might put the borders on three sides and skip the pillow tuck. I might do three or four strips alternating white, then red, then white again (and red again, if I go with four stripes), which will give a flaggy effect...although I'm concerned it may look too busy...maybe I'll just go with one red and one white and keep it simple; blue squares in the corners; and binding it in red. I may have to buy red fabrics for this part--I don't think I have a single red fabric that is big enough to accomplish borders.

So tomorrow it's back to the hospital for at least one more night.  Hopefully we'll be back home Monday night.

K

Post-Thanksgiving Post

Kelly delivered Emma to Grandma's house Wednesday afternoon after she got her flu shot and completed her glucose tolerance test.  After dinner arrived for Ben, we went on a date night, taking in a movie, "Argo".  The film was pretty good, although I felt like they really rushed through a lot of the background information on the state of affairs in the Middle East during the 70s, and then finally got to slow down a bit for the meat of the story.  It, too, felt a little rushed--they could have spent a lot more time with the development of characters and giving a more detail of the culture and turmoil of the time.  It was good, but I almost feel like I need to watch it again to catch more of the details, but it wasn't exactly the kind of movie you watch over and over.  Kelly dropped me off at the hospital and then spent the night at home while I stayed another night at the hospital.

This morning, he stopped by the grocery store and bought some supplies for a Thanksgiving feast at the deli counter--roasted turkey, potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce with almonds (??what??), and a shrimp platter.  We all shared the shrimp and a couple hours later, Kelly was having an allergic reaction.  Great.  It was just some hives and itching, but this isn't the first time he's reacted to shellfish, and it's likely it won't be the last.  I wondered about the length of time it took to have the reaction, but the online info said that it could be a few minutes or up to 2 hours, and it fell into those parameters.

Kelly and I celebrated our Thanksgiving dinner at the hospital's cafe, a poor excuse for a food service area if ever there was one.  However, they made an effort to have decent Thanksgiving fare for those who are forced to be there over the holiday.  It wasn't terribly crowded for dinner, and we got the Full-Meal-Deal of turkey (a bit dry, but tolerable when doused with gravy), mashed potatoes (intolerable, even with the gravy), stuffing (meh), cranberry sauce (pretty good, actually), rolls (real white bread or brown bread), yams (not my thing), and broccoli (overcooked by the sight of them, so I gave them a miss).  They also had slices of pie, although they were out of pumpkin (not a problem--I prefer apple, which I took, but they also had pecan and blueberry).

The evening was quiet--unusually quiet for a hospital, in my opinion.  However, I overheard someone say that many people put off going to the hospital until after Thanksgiving, in the same way that the hospital staff were asking us if we wanted to jet out early.  Everyone wants to enjoy the holiday, damn the consequences.  Not my logical mind.  We decided to go with the standard of care, rather than cave into the pressure of making an emotional decision.  It's dinner.  We can have that another day.

Anyway, Ben played a puzzle game on his DS, Kelly watched a movie on my laptop, and I sewed a few more quilt blocks for the HP Project.

Here's the 2nd, 3rd and 4th blocks:

These two blocks are books and a flask for some potion or other.  The tipped book was supposed to have more pieces to it, showing a bit of the cover, but the perspective was all off and it bugged me, so I opted to omit that detail.  It made the block easier to construct, at least.  With the color of this vial, I'm going to say that it probably contains armadillo bile.

This last block is probably going to be one of the more complicated in the lot.  The eyeglasses have 40 pieces in it, and caused me to mumble more than a few curses, let me tell you.  I even hexed it a few times, just for good measure.  Luckily, I won the wizard's duel and have set it with another pair of books.  Then I looked at the photo I printed up, and the lenses are supposed to be white.  Too bad.  I'm not doing it again.

I have one more block in the top row, then I'm onto the next row!

Around 9:00, I decided to call it a night with the sewing and pack it all away. So, after I cleaned up the sewing mess, sweeping up the bits of paper and snippets of fabric and thread, Kelly took the suitcase of dirty laundry and headed out the door...leaving me to stay here for another night.  Not sure how this is fair, exactly, since neither one of us needs to be anywhere in the morning, and I've spent 2 nights in 10 sleeping in my own bed.  However, I am committed to going home tomorrow night to sleep in my own bed for the weekend and take the first round of things home that we will not be needing for the last couple of days.  I may take my sewing machine home, too.  Maybe I can bring the finished book blocks back and embroider the names of the book titles on them.  I'll have to get the book lists for the classes, and a few of the books from Harry's personal collection, like Quiddich Through the Ages, and maybe even a few of Hermione's favorites...Hogwarts: A History.  

G'nite.

Harry Potter Thanksgiving

Now that we're in the wind-down to the countdown the holidays (starting officially at 8 pm today), I thought I'd take the time to make some Harry Potter quilt blocks this week.

I started at the very beginning.  It seemed a very good place to start.  (Oh, wait...they traditionally show that movie at Easter, don't they?  Or am I thinking of the Wizard of Oz?  Or did they give up that tradition and assume that everyone has these movies on DVD now?)

Officially, it's called the Project of Doom and the designer created a bunch of paper pieced blocks, making a new one each week for 30 weeks.  I figured I could probably make one or two blocks a day and get a good start on the project before we're sent home.  Right now I'm sewing in a less-than-ideal work space, not having brought my cutting mat, ruler and rotary cutter, so I'm going old school with scissors.  I did pack up a collection of fabrics a month ago in anticipation of this stay, adding a fat quarter of fabric here and there as I went.  Accuracy is a concern, but thankfully the scissors err on the big side, rather than too small.  Most of the pieces of the blocks are marked with sewing lines, so it really hasn't been a problem.

First block:  the crystal ball from Professor Trelawney's class!

  

Several of the nurses have come by during the course of the day to see what I was sewing on, and to see the pattern that I printed out.  I had made a color copy to refer to as I did the assembly and put into the box with the fabrics.  Many of them grew up with Harry Potter, or at least were young adults during the HP craze, so they are delighted with the pattern.  Several more said they wished they knew how to sew.  I encouraged them to take a class and named a few stores where they could look into it.  I think it's a great shame that our society knows how to program a hand-held device but can't sew on a button.

I'm not sure how I'm going to put the titles of the books onto the spines, but I think I may do some embroidery for some of them--especially the dark colored books.  The light colored ones I can use permanent fabric pens (the archival acid-free ones we use to label quilts) with a light box and templates.

So we aren't getting out of here for the holiday, but should be heading home on Monday or maybe Tuesday.  We had to forego the trip down to visit with Mike & Laura (whose belly looks like a basketball stuffed under her shirt).  Kelly brought QFC deli Thanksgiving complete with potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing and turkey, as well as a shrimp platter (that we quickly devoured).  When you boil it all down, Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what you have...and eating a lot of pie.  So while we are still short a pie (which I have requested from every doctor and nurse that walks in -- they always ask, "Can I get you anything?" and I say, "Get me some pie!  STAT!"), I am thankful that Ben is getting the best care, is improving in health & weight, and getting the most amazing (and expensive) antibiotics to kick the pseudomonas out of his lungs (which moved in without an invitation... the bastards).

Ben hasn't been much of an eater despite the quantities of food that have come to the room.  He had breakfast (eggs with ham and peppers cooked in and bacon), second breakfast (scrambled eggs without ham), lunch (pizza pocket), and a second lunch with more breakfast (turkey sandwich and more scrambled eggs), and he only ate a few bites.  He's like an anorexic hobbit.  Kelly even tried to get Ben to eat his peaches by playing music.  Apparently this band is from Seattle and are big Sounders fans, so they played the halftime show at the Western Conference finals last week.  Kelly went there with "Gang Green", his game buddies.  I might be able to be one of the game buddies next year...we're waiting to hear back about ticket availability.

Ah well, back to HP blocks.  I'm nearly done with the second block and might be able to start on the third block today, too!  Have a magical Thanksgiving!

Day Three at Chez Children's

The first night here wasn't bad--the couch wasn't terribly uncomfortable and we weren't disturbed every few hours by staff during the night.  They snuck in, took vitals as necessary, and left us to sleep.  Last night, unfortunately, they were not nearly as quiet or subtle.

Blood draw for medicine levels at 6:30 pm was not well-received, and the scheduled blood draw at 10:30 was late.  By 11:30, the vampire hadn't returned to draw the blood, and the orderly available wasn't qualified to do the arm draw...only the finger poke.  So she came in and poked his finger and milked the blood from it to fill the small vial.  It was unpleasant, to say the least.  He was not a fan of this activity.

At 3:30 a.m., they woke me to help hold him down so they could poke him for his glucose level, which is a new procedure they started 6 months ago on CF patients.  Many of them have symptoms of diabetes, but it's not type 1 or type 2; they're islets are *working* but due to inflammation, they are often sluggish to get started and can cause diabetes-like symptoms.  I have no idea why she felt the need to wake him for this procedure, let alone wake me to assist.  They weren't very gentle, or seemingly, experienced.  Thankfully, we have a different nurse tonight.  Someone named Jenny...that's the name of a 40 year old, not a 20 year old.  The 20 year olds are named Jennica or Brittney.  There's hope.

Don't get me wrong--99% of the people I've worked with here are amazing and always polite, ask if they can get us anything, and are always willing to jump up and do the littlest things, from getting a cup of water or extra blankets for the beds.  They're really great...but it's a teaching hospital, so sometimes the learning curve is a little steeper for some people.  Patience from the patients...

The doctor on call this week is the awesome Dr. G...always a great leader, a great doctor, and a great conversationalist (and a proud card-carrying, self-proclaimed geek).  He'll go to bat for the parents and teach the young doctors when the parents ask why things were done a certain way.  Like "why did they need to do a blood draw at 11:30 at night?" The answer is that they started his medication late in the afternoon...they should have started it earlier in the day.  'Keep in mind,' he said, 'what the schedule will be like for follow-up testing later, and how it can impact the patients you treat and their families.'

I've been having some great conversations with a respiratory therapist named Elizabeth.  She's about my age and height, from Tennessee, and is just a joy to talk to.  We have a lot of the same small-town attitudes and logic (especially when it comes to the new food service rules that were enacted at the hospital), both have "high maintenance" kids, and enjoy a geeky conversation.  Her visits to work with Ben have been fun for all of us.  With her urging, I looked into--and found--the web address to write a carefully-worded letter to the food service about their decision to eliminate comfort foods and non-diet drinks for the highly-educated employees who can make their own decisions and the stressed out families who are just looking for something familiar and soothing.  I may draft another version that I can post publicly in other forums, but the web-based forum did not allow me to copy the text to paste it elsewhere.

While we have been here, I started working on quilt blocks that I goofed up about five years ago.  When we were getting ready to move South, we borrowed Mom & Dad's 29-foot RV and went to an RV park in the area where Kelly's job was located.  It gave him an easy commute to work in the mornings (reducing it from 90 minutes to 15) and allowed us an opportunity to explore the area.  While we were encamped in the confined space, I brought along my sewing machine and began assembling 1930s Triple Irish Chain blocks.  Unfortunately, I didn't pay close attention to how it was supposed to be assembled and I did it wrong.  About 20 times.  Each of the 49 patch blocks was supposed to have a white square in the center space on each edge, but I had put a colored square instead.

Now that I have a lot of sitting time and needed a UFO project that I could bring with me to work on, I thought I'd bring these and fix the bad blocks.  I have torn out the four squares per block and began replacing them with the white pieces that I had pre-cut before coming here.  Sorry the photo is so bad--the overhead light was more like a spotlight that over-exposed that nearest row and underexposed the far rows...but you get the idea.

My next project here will be a more elaborate paper-pieced Harry Potter quilt found on Sew Hooked...or Fandom in Stitches...which will eventually look something like this:

I have no doubt that it will look slightly different in the end, using different fabrics and possibly setting the blocks differently, but you get the idea.  The bottom corner block is supposed to be a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, but it's really hard to tell and every time I look at it, I have to think about what that is supposed to be.  It may be that it's just too small on this image and in person, it makes far more sense, but I may adjust that block design some.  What you can't see here at all is that the books have some of the titles on the spines... "A History of Magic", "Hogwarts: A History", "Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1", "Travels with Trolls", "Voyages with Vampires", etc.  I wish I had an embroidery machine to do all that fancy stuff, but alas...that was available on the Viking 500, not the 400.  I guess I'll have to use a Pigma pen and my very best handwriting, or draw it on and embroider by hand over the top.

Kelly is going to take the weekend shift while I get a couple days to sleep in my own bed....the bliss of the simple things in life.  Clean laundry and a comfy mattress.

This evening, Bekah came by with a pizza (charging $10 a sniff to passers-by) which we enjoyed for dinner.  Shortly afterwards, Kelly and his mom came to visit with Cammie.  She helped us eat the pizza as well as Ben's leftover salad and bacon, and Kelly and his mom went to the cafeteria for dinner.  She finished her homework while we knitted and visited.  She worked on a scarf with some yarn I had given her from the Big Pink Bin (it looks like Noro type yarn, but it's softer and at least partially synthetic--I think it may have been a cheap Fred Meyer Noro-knockoff yarn; I'm not sure of its origin).  I finished up a pair of socks I started at Heide's a few months ago.

Cammie brought all of Ben's homework and the class "pet", King Pork Chop.  Each student gets the opportunity to take him home for the weekend, and the class decided to allow him to bring him to the hospital over the Thanksgiving break.  He needs to write a few paragraphs about what they did together and add pictures to the pages.  This is one of the photos that will be going into the book once I print it out at home...if I can print it out.  The color printer has been on the blink lately.

Next up for me is to read a couple of blogs I follow, then off to bed.  G'nite!

A Veritable Smorgasbord!

The last few days have been packed full of activities!

Thursday, in particular...The day started with a mysterious delivery in the mail.  It was covered with Kanji and the address was China, so I knew it could only be one thing...the dress we ordered for Emma from the Cosplay company!  We ordered it just a couple weeks ago, and I was surprised that it had arrived so soon!  They estimated 50-60 days to create this dress, and it's been...what...14?  Awesome!  I was glad that it didn't take nearly as long as they said it would, but Emma's sizes were perfectly "off the rack" for the XL size.  That's right.  SHE is an EXTRA LARGE.  Those Asian chicks must be really skinny since Emma's a size 6 to 8.  What a porker.

I ran up the stairs and said, "Emma!  A dinosaur egg arrived for you!"  She gleefully tore into the packaging!  The red satin peeked through the clear plastic interior packaging and she was really excited about getting her Elizabeth dress.  She pulled out the wig, the accessories, and unfurled the dress...

And it was a dramatic let-down.  It's the wrong dress.  Hmm.  I asked her what character this dress was for and she didn't know.  I posted this picture on Facebook to see if Heide or her girls knew what it was, but they didn't.  Emma called her friend, Miss E who was able to identify it as "Beatrice" from another anime that they don't watch because it's too scary.  Note the photo laying on the floor next to the dress--it's all red and white with a little pink on it; no black or gold sequins.  Not happy.

I emailed the company and asked if it would be possible to return it, and they wrote back (in broken, but understandable, English) to apologize for the mistake and verified our order and that they would begin to make the correct dress and mail it.  They didn't mention how to return the wrong dress, but they'll probably want it back since it's a $134 gown.  And that's the sale price!  If they don't want it back...well, then I guess Emma has a bonus anime dress that she can wear.

The quilt show is coming up very soon, so everyone wanted their quilts done, and they want them now!   I quilted three different quilts this past week--a small Japanese panel quilt for Michele (didn't get a photo of it--I'll have to get that at the show next week), and a "Lasagna" quilt for Donna, which was done in the same pattern as Sharon's quilt that I finished a couple weeks ago.  For this pattern, they take 2 1/2" wide strips of fabric and sew them end to end (at 45 degree angles).  Then you fold it in half and sew those together and cut it at the fold.  Now it's half as long, but twice as wide.  Repeat process until it's about equally long and wide.  Instead of the bright colors that Sharon chose, Donna chose slightly more subdued, but still wild, colors.  The fabrics are the more modern Amy Butler or Kaffe Fassett type patterns that are all the rage now.  There were a lot of florals and leaves, so I quickly quilted it with loops and leaves.

Another large quilt I did was for a woman named Joy.  This quilt top she put together to go up for auction at her church.  While Joy's quilt isn't going into a quilt show, but it's going up for auction on the 24th--the same day as the quilt show.  I did two different quilts for her Mom a few months back--one was actually a repair from another quilter's work, and the other was a top for a wedding gift, I think--and I'm really happy that she gave her daughter the reference.  I still have to take some photos of the quilt before she comes to pick it up!

In order for two of the quilt owners to get them bound before the show, I made a trip up to drop off quilts and the pins and other supplies for our Pinning Party on Tuesday.  While I was in town, we went to the fair!  On the hottest day of the summer!  During the hottest part of the day!  We stopped at the needlework barn first; I thought that I would get it out of the way and have the kids spend most of their time seeing the critters and enjoying their fair food.  I enjoyed this Harry Potter quilt most and after a few minutes of searching, found the pattern...A FREE PATTERN...on a web site.  I also got a chance to talk to a few guild members, which was too boring for the kids and they ended up dragging me out of there within about 15 minutes.  Ah well...

We headed over to the cow barn...one of my favorite places.  I love cows...they're big and gentle, make great things like milk and butter and delicious steaks...and they don't stink as much as pigs.  Clearly an important aspect of my admiration.  This is part of the birthing center at the cow barn where this baby cow was born about four hours before.  The mama next to her was due to deliver that day, but we had lots to see and didn't want to spend the whole day waiting.

We wandered over to the beef barn where Ben started to wonder why we had to kill animals to eat them.  The thought seemed a little upsetting to him, but he got over it fairly quickly.  Cammie was introduced to the idea of the FFA and will have to look into clubs around here.  Of course, here we are living in the big city with nary a farm to be seen.  I ran into Tonya, from the quilt guild and chatted a bit about the upcoming show and our staffing issues...I assume everything will fall into place.

Connected to the beef barn was a live animal auction that was going on.  Ben got a kick out of how fast the auctioneer was talking and asked how anyone could understand him.  I totally get that.  They were auctioning pigs off at the time, and I wasn't sure if they were selling them by the pound, by the hundreds, or what.  He kept saying "one-seventy-five, two dollars..."  Maybe it was $200.  Doesn't matter...I don't like pigs.

After that, we looked at goats and sheep.  We saw little signs that said, "Wanted:  Dead or Alive" on all the pens, and then had their crime:  "eating tin cans", "escape", "ramming farmer", etc.  It was very cute!  While we were enjoying the furry critters, up steps my friend, Chris, whose boys were showing their goats!  It was so good to run into another good friend.

We wandered back to the main area to look at the rides, which we discovered were too expensive--they wanted $1.25 per ticket and each ride was at least 3 to 4 tickets, so $5 per ride per person.  The kids were disappointed, but understood that finances were not conducive for dropping $30 a kid for the infinite ride wristband.  We got some cotton candy and sat in the shade, which was also conveniently located next to the drinking fountains and the bathroom for hand washing, while the sun beat down on the grounds...it was 97 degrees that day.  I dumped a little bit of water on Ben's head to keep him cool, and we stopped for water at the drinking fountains several times, but we still got pretty dehydrated in just a couple hours.

Cammie and I shared some poffertjes from the Dutch bakery, but we missed out on the ice cream sandwiches (the "Moo-wiches") from the Dairy Maids.  After just a little more wandering, we decided we'd had enough of the heat and decided to get some ice water and lemonade from Dairy Queen and drive over to see Tara's new place (she wasn't home or we would have stopped in).  With the air conditioner on full blast and large ice waters, we soon cooled down enough to be comfortable.

We had dinner with Sharon, who explained in more detail about the mass-layoffs at the office earlier that day.  Everyone in their department was sent home after the office manager's secretary announced that the grant money had run out.  Uh...they didn't see this coming?  Apparently the boss had a head-in-the-sand technique for dealing with the upcoming money issues.

So a couple weeks ago, I got to the peak of frustration with my dishes.  I originally bought 12 place settings and I'm down to 8 plates, and a couple of them have chips in them.  While the smaller plates and most of the bowls are fine, if we have more than a couple friends over for dinner, we're going to be out of stoneware pretty quickly.  I went online and found that Macy's was having a huge sale on Fiestaware, and if you buy $50 or more, the shipping is free.  How could I resist?  I got plates in twos in scarlet, paprika, marigold, shamrock, turquoise, cobalt and plum.  This goes with the small cereal and serving bowls we already have that have withstood quite a lot of abuse in the last five years.  We broke one bowl when it crashed to the floor, but considering we bought the last set of dishes just over a year ago and lost four plates already, and I know several restaurants use these plates for their services, and friends who have recommended them, I am confident that they'll last a lot longer than the cheap Gibsons that I got before.

The Sounders played a game against the Vancouver Whitecaps this afternoon--part of the Cascadia rivalry that has endured for decades--and as a special surprise, Kelly bought two tickets in the front row at the stadium.  If you buy them at the last minute, you can get a really sweet deal on them.  Front row is perfect for short people like me and for kids who want to see the game without having to stand on seats (and probably still not be able to see).  He would have bought just one in our area, but Emma is staying with Miss E for the weekend, and I dropped Cammie off with Sharon and Miss O for a camping adventure until Tuesday.

Although we had three seats paid for, one of the seats was on the other side of the stadium, so the adults sat on the seats and Ben sat on our laps.  It was a great game and we won 2-0.  Everyone got free sunglasses and a photographer for the MLS took pictures of Ben holding his scarf over his head like the rest of us.  He's just so totally adorable!

And for my friend, Dave from Boston, I give you the Sporty Edition of Fant-Ass-Tic Days!  Enjoy!