Fiber and Pulp

Easing up to Frantic

I just finished piecing two more blocks for 'obligation' projects, simple hearts using 'musical' fabrics. :) I _should_ be doing assorted tasks aimed at details that need to be handled before I leave on vacation Friday morning. Ahhh, I'm pretty good at avoidance behaviour. LOL

Hurricane Irene left us pretty much alright here, chez Schiffer. We lost one of our house's downspout drains that will have to be put back up ... and lots of small branches and leaves from our trees that will re-grow. The power was out here at my store all day on Sunday so we never opened. Luckily it was back before opening this morning.

The weather is glorious outside today, post-storm - airy, sunny and in the 70's. Rare and lovely!

:) Linda

Last August Birthday

Yesterday I finished the last birthday gift for August for my staff members with this little crazy quilt. The fabrics are from a Moda collection called Wuthering Heights (from several years ago). I quite enjoyed working on this little baby! I gave it to the (belated) birthday girl today so I thought I'd share photos with you. :)

The color scheme of the fabric collection was a soft cream, soft brown-pink, turquoise/robin's egg blue, chocolate brown and deep brick-red. I do love these colors together! :) It was fun to do the embroidery - all very simple stitching. I wanted to portray three roses and one leaf ... and I _think_ it worked. The qulit is only about 20" square. Here is the whole thing (laying across my messy desktop):

I machine quilted it with floral/petal like meandering. I wanted to compress the 'background' and let the embroidered sections pop up - worked quite well. :)

I have another staff birthday coming up soon - gotta go on working!

:) Linda

Review

I quite enjoyed this movie - though I might be the only reviewer in America that did, from the looks of the review titles I've seen since I watched it. :) LOL That would be nothing strange - my taste in entertainment tends to run to the Science Fiction/Fantasy and is often counter-culture. LOL

My friend Barbara did say that it was a bit more gruesome than she expected. I told her they had to make the aliens seem icky so as to make them the classic black hats. :)

I thought the economics of the premise were a bit silly - considering the costs involved in space travel, I cannot imagine it to be economically viable to go across space to harvest gold. (shrug). :) I quite enjoyed seeing my two favorite male screen stars (Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford) at the same time on the screen. The plot worked ok for me, too.

I spent my day off, yesterday, going to a business meeting which required two hours of driving on DC Interstates (one hour down, one hour back). I spent the rest of the day with my feet up - highway driving like that just tires me out. :P

I hope to get some sewing done this weekend - got two meetings here at the store with opportunities to sew, but probably not for 'me' purposes. :)

:) Linda

Fabric Postcard Round Up

I shared the fabric postcards that I made for this swap here (about half-way down the page). Today I got the last card from my swap-mates (Thanks, Laura!!:) so I thought I'd share the five of them with you here. Our theme was 'Going Places.' The one above is from Margaret.

Here is Lisa's card:

Laura's card:

Here's B-joy's card:

And here is Vicki's card:

Sure has made my mail box more fun during the past six weeks to be in this swap!

'Course, today the place I was going - for about half a minute around 2 p.m. - was up and down in an actual EARTHQUAKE. That is a rare event here in Maryland - I can only remember two in the years I've been here, since 1978, other than this one. About 6.0, epicenter near Richmond, VA, less than a hundred miles south of us here in Catonsville. (shiver!)

I know folks on the west coast of the U.S. will laugh at us, but this was scary, at least for me. Glad it is not a more frequent event!

I'm off this afternoon to see another movie with my friend Barbara B. (before I got off for vacation and the movies I want to see are gone from the theaters:) - we're off to see Cowboys and Aliens. :) I'll let you know how I like it later.

:) Linda

Saga's End

Yesterday my friend Barbara B and I went to see the last episode (movie) of the Harry Potter saga. The pattern above is courtesy of the Fandom website which has oodles of designs about Harry's world (and several other heros, too). Here's another one that's pertinent to the movie:

Now _there_ was a dramatic moment! I've always admired the character Neville Longbottom so I was glad to see he got a space to shine, too. :)

I spent most of the rest of the day yesterday asleep. :P Today, too - went to bed at 11:45 pm last night and woke up today at 3:30 pm. Hard to get anything interesting done with so little conscious time! Weird dreams - drowning in sleep. :P

Linda

Block Progress

I finally got a chance to work on finishing up the blocks I sewed on during my trip to Indianapolis last week. On the right above is a 'crazy' or 'crumb' pieced block made with the left-overs from my first Capuccino strip set. I was determined to save all the bits cut wrong, trimmed away, etc., to see if I could get a 13th block pieced with them.

Now that I know I can do that (and I had about two palm-sized bits of patchwork left after this block) ... I don't have to do that again. LOL Took me ages to piece the thing - though I do like how it turned out. I think it looks a bit like a city street map. :)

There are a total of eight blocks for this semester's set of classes. I decided to put them together in pairs - partly because I'm teaching two blocks each month and partly to make the quilt-by-the-block step faster. :)

As you can tell, these blocks are not quilted, yet. I have to go back and finish quilting the blocks I made during the third semester (last fall) before I quilt these. :) 

I have most of the yardage from my second Capuccino strip set left and about six more blocks to create. I'm getting pretty excited about getting this quilt done - this one is going on our bed at home!

:) Linda

August Birthdays

This little quilt is made from a fabric collection by Moda's Three Sisters designers called Seaside Rose. These fabrics came out several years ago - five? seven? :)

I used a set of charm squares to make this little quilt (maybe 24"x30"?) as a birthday gift for Alice I. (a second staff birthday this month:) Luckily, Alice likes it! :)

Here's a close-up showing the free hand spiral roses I quilted into the alternate areas of the quilt - that was fun! I don't get as much opportunity to make quilts as I did before I bought the store. Nice to find out I still _can_!! :)

I also gave Arlene her Fig Tree quilt today - which she liked. (whew!)

Just one more staff birthday to go this month - gotta finish the third quilt-let now that I'm back. :) I should be so good at making birthday gifts for my own family members!!

:) Linda

Home and Tell

One morning while I was in Indianapolis last week I went out and walked around Monument Circle (near our hotel). I stopped at a cafe to eat breakfast and sketched what I was seeing while I ate. I know my drawing level is, um, scratchy ... but this is what I saw (more or less:). Luckily I have a very small sketchbook I always carry in my purse ... and a Pigma pen (although the nib is getting pretty battered on it - need to get a new one:).

I took some photos on that walk, too. The planters along the way had very large Canna Lilies growing in them - the stripey leaves got my attention. :)

I think it might be interesting to try piecing something with this pattern. :) Lots of other sights on the circle were possible quilt inspirations, too:

Most of the time I was there this year I spent sewing. The first day most of my work was by hand - I made three atc's (artists trading cards) for the birthday swap I'm in ... and five fabric postcards for another swap. I had a selection of prints I made while pounding flowers a couple of weeks ago so I used those. Here are the postcards I made - the theme was 'Going Places' - I forgot to photo the atcs. (sigh)

I had hoped to go in to the store and work today while no one was there (closed on Wednesdays) ... but I decided to do laundry instead. This weekend is going to be busy at the shop (promotional get together) and I decided to do the washing now, as much as possible, so as not to worry over it later.

Traveling is tiring for me ... but I enjoy getting to see new things in new ways. :)

Linda

Downtown Indy

We arrived in Indianapolis early on Wednesday. My daughter and her husband got into town that evening and wanted to go to dinner (at Buco de Bepi, as has become traditional for us) ... But only my son, Hugh, went - it was about a half mile walk from our hotel and I just could not face the walk. :(

After dinner, Eva strolled back with Hugh and we spent an hour or so chatting happily in our room. I do not get to see her often enough! :)

This morning I got up and out around 10:30 or so - the weather is lovely today and I thought it would do me some good to walk a bit before starting my day's 'work' :) We are staying in the Hilton Garden Hotel which is right on Monument Circle in downtown Indy.

The monument is a very large edifice in the center of a circle - dedicated to Indiana's Civil War dead**. At the other end of a short avenue stands the state's Capitol. Between is several city blocks full of vigorous offices, shops, theaters, etc. The street around the monument is paved with bricks which makes the tire sounds from the fairly slow traffic circulating around the monument into a pleasant rumble. :)

**No, I was wrong - it's dedicated to Indiana's dead from all the conflicts through history that the state has sent fighters to. There were names from several other conflicts as well!

I walked around about two - thirds of the circle and decided to stop at a mexican food cafe for breakfast. After I ate, I drew the scene for a few minutes in my little pocket sketchbook before walking onward.

You cannot see across the circle (the monument is quite tall) so I wasn't sure how far I had walked around. Just about the time my right leg started to go numb I found myself back at the hotel. That was a god-send! I know I don't have a good head for distance - but I could swear some part of the circle disappeared! LOL

Yesterday I made three embroidered atc's for a birthday swap. Of course, I was so focused on finishing and packaging them to mail that I forgot to photograph them. (sigh) I also got five fabric postcards half finished to send (first working priority was to catch up on my obligations). :)

When I got back from the walk, I worked the USA Today newspaper crossword (I'm not very good at them but I do enjoy solving them:) ... and then took out my sewing machine and finished up the postcards.

As Hugh and I drove into the downtown area, we saw a post office somewhere near our hotel. Tomorrow I will venture out to mail the goodies off. I did remember to take photos but I will have to wait to use my son's laptop to post them - there's no way to directly import photos to my iPad. (shrug)

:) Linda

PS Now I'm going to watch a tv show from Netflix on my iPad and then sew for the rest of the day.

PPS Have you ever noticed how truly awful the tv selections are in a hotel that offers pay-per-view? :) Hugh and I watched X-Men First Class last night. It cost $17!! I figured if we both watched, it was still cheaper than going to the movies at $11 a head. :)