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 . :)

Only I could do this....

We were on our way out to the store yesterday when I tripped over my own feet and bruised the heck out of my left big toe, right on the knuckle. My toes folded right under and my full weight (quite ample lately thanks to ice cream) came right down on it.

It is kind of purple now, so I'm parking my butt on the couch and also in the boys' room and embroidering. Today would have been a lovely day for the park, but I think I'll need to rest my foot some. Just doing basic daily straightening up this morning was awful.

I'll post pictures of my toe injury project soon :)

Pretty Kitty

I've been dabbling in embroidery. I was never into it before, but on a whim, I picked up Jenny Hart's Stitch it Kit, and have been hooked ever since. A lot of traditional patterns seemed a bit too stuffy for my taste, and looked too difficult for me to even want to try.

Her designs only require mastery of a couple of different stitches, and are totally awesome. How do skulls, pinup ladies, and sushi sound? I'm currently embroidering a cat on a handkerchief for a friend. I'm not sure what to call it (Is it a dresser scarf? A wall-hanging? A doily?) but I think it is turning out very cute. I plan on adding some more details but wanted to post a picture to prove that,yes, I am working on craft related stuff. :)

Those shadowy stars are from one of the patterns, I just haven't embroidered those yet. I made them very light on purpose, because I like the patterns so much I want to get lots of use out of them.

This is what I've been up to with the skull quilt. I found a great book called Take Away Applique, by Suzanne Marshall (she's in my quilting links). In it, one of the things she explains is how she quilts with no hoop or frame, so she's able to move from room to room with her project. One of the ways she makes the method work is she bastes the heck out of a quilt. This way, she doesn't have to worry about it coming apart, she just fills in with the quilting stitches.

This woman's work is fantastic. She does it all by hand and it's so beautiful, it defies description. You have to see the pictures on the site. Besides, it's outrageous to ship something like a quilting frame or even just the hardware here, and then I'd have to keep the kids from getting their fingers caught in it. At any moment I may have to literally drop my work to chase after the boys. The excessive basting is a very good idea in my case.

Even thought I've never tried applique, I want to try one of the bug quilts you can see on her site or in the book. Don't Bug Me is the quilt on the cover, and Wyatt immediately started pointing out all the different bugs to me. I love traditional applique designs, but never saw anything that made me say "I have to make this now!" until I saw that quilt.

Not crafty, but fun anyhow

I don't do a lot of memes, but I found this at http://crankyprof.blogspot.com.

1. Go to Wikipedia and put in your birthday, without the year, in the search bar.

2. List on your blog 3 events, 2 births, 1 death and 1 holiday that happens(ed) on your birthday.

3. Then tag 5 more friends to do it!

I knew some of the things that had happened on my birthday, but others were a surprise. Like the cranky prof, I'm not tagging anyone, but if you do it, leave me a note in the comments so I can see yours. Enjoy!


3 events
1891- A New immigration depot is opened on Ellis Island, New York
1904-The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square, then known as Longacre Square
1923- The chines of Big Ben are broadcast in radio for the first time by the BBC

2 births
1908 Simon Wiesenthal, Austrian Holocaust survivor, (d. 2005)
1937 Anthony Hopkins, Welsh actor

one death
1997-Michael Kennedy
one holiday
New Year's Eve on the Gregorian calendar