It doesn’t look much right now, but it took me a couple of hours to sew this kite into the fabric for the mug rug swap on Saturday with the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. I was going to use another square for this project, but scrapped the whole thing after seeing this dreamy quilt on the internets. I’m very sure I didn’t use the same process as Melanie (the creator of the quilt). Her kites are perfectly spaced and I think she got her kites done in four pieces. Luckily, the theme for this project is “improv” – so, this is my take on it. I had to log cabin and sew the heck out of little kite for all the edges to finally come out in some semblance of a rectangle in the end. Slice and sew…slice and sew…uh oh…that didn’t quite line up…slice, slice, sew…FINALLY! I have four edges instead of 7. Hooray!

I even thought of a title for this little mug rug on the bus today – Gray Skies. We’ve had wonky weather this week and the idea of a happy kite in the overcast sky cheers me right up.

I’ll have time tomorrow night after work to sew one more grey border around it and then I’ll embellish it with some string and some satin ribbon on the string, so it looks like those old fashioned kites with ribbons on the tails. And of course, I need to bind it. Tomorrow could be a long night for me, but that’s okay. I don’t have to be in Abbotsford to swap it until 2:15, so as you can clearly see, I have HEAPS of time! Maybe it feels like heaps of time because it’s not 4:00 am on the day it’s supposed to be ready. I have about 36 hours to complete it. Ahead of schedule!

Just in case you’re wondering why the Modern Quilt Guild will be in Abbotsford, it’s for the Creative Stitches Show. It starts tomorrow and ends on Saturday at 5:00 at the Tradex. I’ll be manning our quilt guild booth for the last shift, so that should be delightful. I think I may even help clean up.

Best hit the hay. I’ve got more sewing to do tomorrow after work!

I spent a restful day knitting in a circle and making this cool scarf for our upcoming trip to Calgary. I’ve spent hours knitting it, careful not to twist any of the stitches, only to find I’m pretty sure that I have a twist in it. *Sigh*. I’m not sure if I REALLY need to frog the whole thing or not…but I’m leaning toward, *grumble*, starting the whole darn over again. On a positive note, my knitting is speeding up, so it may not take me as long to re-knit my second try.

As I spent the day lazing and lounging, something on the balcony piqued the kitties’ interest.

I’m sure it was some mean old crows. They love to swoop by make them all chatter-y and wild-eyed.

You know what I’m looking forward to? Work tomorrow. I’ve got a bunch of portraits to take. I’m on LinkedIn duty tomorrow for the people at our office. Time to update our resumes and online presence for our great job hunts of 2012. I’ll be bringing my big flash, my portrait lens and even my big reflector. Woohoo! Photo day at the office!

Once I signed up for this project – things found in your fridge – it started a chain reaction. I realized that if I was going to take a photo of what was in the fridge, I would have to replace the burned-out light bulb in our refrigerator. I kept the bulb for a few days, taking it with me to London Drugs to make sure I picked the right one. I put the burned out bulb back in my backpack, took it home and in the mailbox? This month’s Cloth Paper Scissors with an article on how to make birds out of light bulbs. It was meant to be! I began stage one of Light Bulb – Chicken Legs tonight. I used Sculpey – it’s clay that you bake to harden. I’m not sure if it will be sturdy enough to hold the light bulb and the bamboo chopsticks I used for legs. I may have to add some glue. There are a few stages to this project, so there may be some added stability when I add a layer of paper clay. I’ve had some in my stash for ages and never used it, this is the perfect time to use it. And just in time for Easter, too! I can put some Easter Eggs with this little chicken. I just hope he stays standing up. This will be the perfect gift for my cousin’s new baby, don’t you think? No! That would be crazy! I’m going to give it to her 3 year old daughter instead! Excellent idea. I’m sure it will make it in one piece in our luggage to Calgary for the Easter Long Weekend, which is just around the corner. I’m looking forward to that mini vacay.

Meanwhile, peeking up around town…

Snowdrops. It’s really Spring when these guys show up. Which just reminded me. Calgary is going to be really cold in April, isn’t it? If memory serves me correctly, it’s really chilly. Oh man. I’d better get my long scarf finished.

This square represents many hours of errors and mistakes, including an entire quilt top I made that I didn’t really end up liking after I had completed it. Somehow, when I put it all together, I love the end result!

The centre square was the last of my botched 10X10 squares, that actually measured about 7.5 X 7.5 inches. Really poor measuring on my part with that one. I did my favourite thing to it – cut it into 4 squares, then re-sewed them all together, but instead of making a diamond shape with the stripes, I sewed them all facing out.

After that, I did two log cabin rows – one tan, and then one with some cut up sections of the ugly quilt top! Huzzah! I’ll add two more rows and then make this into another pillow. I think I’ll stick to this stripey style of quilting for awhile. I really like it! I’ll never have to buy 2 metres of the same fabric again! Stripes all around! Watch out kitties, I see striped bow-ties in your futures!

This fortune is not quite right. I’ve got a few projects pending, including a knitting project I felt like starting. My buddy, Monica, can’t stop making infinity scarves. They are scarves made in the round. They are very huge, but she wraps them a few times around her neck and they look lovely. They are also called cowls. With any luck, I’ll have one around my neck in the near future. But I am a slow knitter, so it could be just in time for Fall.

Another project that is more than pending is another round of The Artist’s Way. I’ve been working on it with Monica (mentioned above) for the last 16 weeks. We just finished the 7th or 8th chapter. We meet every other week and have a little arts and crafts meeting and check in to see how we did with all those tasks assigned in each chapter. It’s a bit of a slog, but I’ve done it a few times before. It helps.

Oh! I just thought of one more thing I need to add to my list of things to make – fabric covers for some journals I found in my stash of stuff. And that’s another project I’m working on – using up my stash. My projects are never ending.

I really hope I get this finished by Thursday night. I decided to use the squares that I made the wrong size for my big scrappy quilt (still in progress) to make a scrappy pillow as a retirement gift for a party I’m going to on Friday night. I know. It’s pretty amazing. Funerals and retirement parties. Who saw that coming? I just keep thinking I graduated from high school a couple of years ago. Not. So.

I made two more squares and sewed them together and will turn them into a wonky square pillow. I was thinking of putting a border around the edges, but I’m not too sure about that. It didn’t look right with patterned or solid fabric. Maybe I need to sew some pieces together to make a border so it matches all the other lines. I’m not too sure yet, but I’d better make up my mind soon. The party is only 3 days away.

I’m also figuring out how to be most productive with my evenings so I can get more work done. One thing I did tonight was to move my computer into my craftroom rather than sitting at the computer in front of the TV. That combination creates an incredible time suck for me and before I know it, it’s 11:30 at night and I’m still in my pajamas from the night before. It’s true!

I also timed myself to see how long it takes to put 1 load of laundry away tonight in my productivity kick. It takes 8 minutes. So why don’t I just spend 8 minutes putting away laundry a couple nights a week rather than creating Mount Everest (sans Green Boots) that takes ages to put away? I’m not sure. But I’m hopeful to stop the laundry insanity. In fact, I think I’ll put away some laundry right now to keep the momentum up.

I will post photos of my completed pillow this week. I’m determined to have it done and done.

And done.

I wanted to do a little knitting today and made this very practical mug cozy. LOLS. I’m pretty sure that little band of knitting is keeping my tea nice and hot. That pink triangle is supposed to be a heart. My knitting heart shapes skills need some improvement. I seem to have a variety of skeins of yarn and none of them are the same colour. I buy yarn the same way I buy fabric – a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Hmmm…I can’t ever knit a sweater, unless I want to look like Cliff Huxtable. I think it’s time to make some potholders and/or washcloths.

Also in the frivolous department, I picked up a milk heater-upper on Friday. We had one at work for awhile and it heats up almond milk perfectly. It definitively makes a lovely treat. I made some strong chai tea and then topped it up with the steamed non-dairy milk. The best part of the milk heater is that you only have to wait 90 seconds to get your nice, hot, beverage. One and a half minutes. Even I’m patient enough to wait for that.

It will free up plenty of time to practice knitting my heart shapes.

1) Get invited to an Arts and Crafts day at Cynthia’s house.

2) Have Lysa make you some surprise birthday cupcakes.

3) Have your crafty friends sing Happy Birthday to you!

4) Enjoy your birthday cupcakes immensely! Put your hands in the air!

Happy birthday, Barbara!

I spent the whole afternoon with some pals painting and colouring fabric. Cynthia did a review of the book, Sew Wild, last month, and she showed us some of the techniques in the book. We painted, stamped, and drew on fabric with sharpies. Here are a few pieces Lysa made:

I learned how to make stamps out of Fun Foam and some other cute tricks. I’ll show you those in tomorrow’s post. I think I’ll have another art and craft day tomorrow all by myself. I can’t wait to sew the fabric into something else…probably some Artist Trading Cards or maybe some little fabric boxes.

This Thursday is Quilting Bee night, and in preparation, I sewed up a name tag for myself. We were supposed to have done this ages ago. Whoops. Anyway, I sewed up a camera name tag. You don’t want to know how long this took me to make. HA!

I sewed strips of turquoise and gray at the top and the bottom of a 4 inch wide black strip. Then I made the mistake of not using fusible webbing for the circles . I should have used the same method I used to make these hearts, because it makes the fabric stay flat and tight when you sew it. Instead, I sewed two circles together, cut one and pulled it inside out so there was a seam around the edges. Unfortunately, when I sewed them on top of each other and then on top of the black “camera” fabric piece, it went all pully. Blech. Oh well. I may make another one using the fusible webbing. I just don’t have time to do that before Thursday night.

I also may add a piece to make it look more like a lens and/or do something a little different for the shutter instead of a scribble of a rectangle done with the free motion foot.

But this will do in a pinch. I think the general idea of “camera” gets across. And, you can really read my name well on the white, so I at least I got that looking pretty good.

On another note, I couldn’t really find a camera quilt block on the internets anywhere, with the exception of one applique camera. I should keep working on this design to create a proper quilt block that looks just like a camera.

After I made a little blender breakfast, I headed right into my craft room to get some sewing done. I didn’t dare turn on the TV or computer for fear that I would lose precious sewing time. I also had plans to watch the SuperBowl in the afternoon, even though I don’t really like or understand the rules of football. I watch it just about every year and mostly just to see guys getting tackled. I like contact sports, I guess.

Anyway, I got a few more 10 X 10 squares done. At this rate, I will be filling the walls with all my squares. I just need to pick up some more flannel. I’m getting great at sewing straight lines, over and over on paper. If it’s true that you need 10,000 hours to become an “expert” at something, I’m well on my way. I’ll be a master at straight line sewing in about 6 or 7 more years.

Also on my To Do List are to send these back to their rightful owners:

I took these little Polaroids at the dinner I went to a couple of weeks ago, and I want to turn them into nice little tags, similar to these ones I have hanging on my decorative branches. I’ll get cracking on them this week.

Any time I’m in my sewing room, Oscar is right there with me.

In between the times he’s biting at the thread on the sewing machine or sitting on the fabric I’m trying to sew, he looks out the window, and then will start to meow at me as it gets closer to 5:00 – his dinner time.

Donner comes in for a visit every once in awhile, but if Mike’s home, you can always find Donner hanging out in Mike’s office. He hangs out on his desk when he’s playing games. Mike put a little bed right on his desk so Donner can just sleep and every once in a while, will try to put his paw on Mike’s snacks. Sneaky kitty.