He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty Wyatt!

http://thesurrealist.co.uk/movie.php?word=Wyatt

This brought me unexpected giggles today. It's a random movie quote generator where a name can be substituted. My post title is the most recent one I did.

I am disappointed my machine crapped out. I really wanted to do some string piecing with the huge scrap collection I'm acquiring. I know it could be done by hand but with some of the bits I'm using, I think a machine will be better because the stitches will be sturdier. I would love to have a nice Bernina, Janome, or Husqvarna, but that just isn't in the budget right now and would be difficult to obtain before we move back to the States in a few months. I'd have to order it and wouldn't get to test it in person, and have my mother in law send it here since authorized dealers don't send machines outside of their area. All those companies have overseas locations, but I'm pretty sure those will be 220 voltage.

So, since there are no repair shops in the area that I'm aware of and we're moving soon and I need a machine now, I put a cheap (94 US Dollars) Brother machine on layaway at the BX. I paid half today and will pay the rest of it when Jason gets paid again, or perhaps sooner if we have extra before then.

I found an adorable outfit today while I was looking at the machines. It looks like a minidress but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a top. I don't think I'll do the minidress thing now that I'm not a size 4 anynmore. Plus,when I'm chasing the boys at the playground, I think the other parents can live fulfilling lives without knowing the exact brand and color of underwear I'm wearing. Anyhow, here it is.

I wasn't so sure about the yellow but Jason gave it the ok, and he has pretty good taste in clothes for a computer geeky guy. :) I want to get some wool roving and make felt flowers so I can pin them in my hair. I think yellow and orange will stand out great against my still purple hair. I think the empire style is really cute. I might have to try my hand at replicating this look when I get my machine.

I have explored some hand piecing ideas the past few days to keep my hands busy. Here is a star I made. It was a pain to trace all the shapes individually and not rotary cut them but it was very easy to hand sew having a line to follow, and I was also able to use some small scraps.

The points don't match up very well in the middle, but I'm ok with that since the star lies flat, and I managed to sew three quarters of it together while I was sitting by the tub while the boys were playing in their bath. Huzzah for multi-tasking!

a bit of strong language ahead

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3269485&page=1

What an asshat. Wait, that's an insult to people who are asshats.

quilting progress and yummy dinner

That little dot is there because I couldn't figure out how to unpost a picture I didn't want there.:)

I realized the other day I haven't really done any piecing in a long time. Save for a couple of small side projects, I've been putting all my creative energy into Jason's quilt. I'm not as frustrated as when I was basting it,though, because I feel now that I'm quilting, I'm actually making progress.

I'm still not sure if I'll have it done in time, but I will try my best. The main reason I'm not on it right now is my left middle finger is sore from feeling the tip of the needle from the backside to make sure it's gone all the way through. I think I've even managed to sew my finger to the quilt a couple of times. Oh well, at least if I bleed on it, it won't show since the material is red and black. :)

Here's what I've done so far. I took pictures of the front but it doesn't really show well with the basting stitches. I'm using black thread in the black spaces,and red in the red. The lines in the square are nice and straight thanks to scotch tape. Boy, it was a pain stitching around it, but now that I see how nice the lines are I'm glad I did it. I had a hard time deciding what to do in the red parts, but I'm just going to free hand some nice little arches. I don't have a decent marking pencil, and I think with the mottled texture it looks fine it things aren't perfectly straight. If I were doing it by machine, I'd probably do a meander stitch there.

We had the best dinner tonight. For some reason, I was having a strong craving for black eyed peas (the food, not the band). So,I cooked two slices of bacon and saved the drippings and sauteed some chopped celery and onions in half of it, the dumped in the tins of the peas and let that simmer. Then, I made some cornbread from scratch, no sugar, with a drained can of fiesta corn dumped in. I used the remaining bacon grease to oil the pie plate so when I took it out of the oven the bread was light and fluffy with a fine brown crust on the outside. I plopped some beans on the plate, added a nice hunk of cornbread, and some thick slices of tomato on the side.Oh, and the sweet tea. It was all so good, it was almost better than chocolate. I'm definitely going to have it for dinner again tomorrow night.

No injured toe projects yet

My toe is completely better, thank goodness. I didn't take any pictures of that project I started because I stopped working on it after that day. I think I have a case of crafter's ADD. I will start up a lot of little projects and not find one that catches my fancy.

That is, until yesterday. I finished basting the skull quilt!!! Yaayyyy!!! I got started quilting on it tonight. I'm so excited, I finally feel like I'm making headway. I just hope I can finish it in time for Jason to take it with him.

Since I don't have any craft pictures today, I'll post a couple of my critters. Adelaide,who is Addy for short, is our border collie mix that we got at the Denver Dumb Friends League right after we moved to Denver in 2001. Korshka is our little evil kitty darling who joined us in February 2002.

I apologize for the quality. Jason has rearranged stuff on the computer and I can't find some of our pictures. These were taken back on 2003, when we still lived in Denver. I'm kind of ashamed to say I haven't take many pictures of the animals recently, since I've been snapping ones of the kids. I'll just chalk it up to the camera not being able to stand all the cuteness at once . :)