Vanity

I've been idly wondering what vanity I'll carry with me to the Afterlife, and I think it'll be about my intelligence. It's useful, and plenty, and I'm proud of it.

Always have been.

 

Most of the time.

Still here

Up to my eyeballs in inventorying. You know I'll blog about it when I surface.

That new dryer smell

The heating element came in Friday, just as The Loud and I were completing our Income Tax return (with a satisfactory bottom line). I had it installed by the afternoon, and it was a joy to behold not only a warm glow emanating from the back of the rotating drum, but three levels of warm glows!

Broke, don't work

It's been that kind of week so far. (This title is typical of the notes I'd get attached to non-working machinery when I worked as a Biomed Tech in a lab. So very helpful.)

I do NOT heart this

I'm working my way to the finish of the Heart You QAYG top. The ten rows have been measured and the average length calculated (with butted seam allowances, they tend to grow).

Never-ending

The Community First!Quilters meet monthly, contributing our presence to a couple of places. One is a fabric store at which we meet 2 of every 3 months, and the other is a quilting store. The difference? The first sells fabrics for quilts and quilters, the second features long-arm machines on which one can rent time to quilt the results of all that fabric purchased.

The CF!Quilters get donations, lots and lots of donations, in the form of finished quilts, rolls of batting, cases of thread, and destashing efforts of people or their surviving families. This was one of four boxes we unpacked this past Saturday.

Four more from the same source are sitting at the second meeting location, and four more are being held temporarily in the home of one of the members. In addition, a member who works at the quilting store/studio brought in several kits and projects that had been donated at that location over the past two months (while the group was on holiday hiatus).

Massive Time Suck

This happened Monday:

Look at that poor, taped-together power cord on my old laptop!

My old laptop hasn't been playing nicely for years, crashing frequently and taking 5-7 attempts to reboot successfully each time. I've frequently been denied access to websites (or their features) because my favorite browser was no longer supported by my Operating System (or some variation thereof). So I plugged these two into an outlet for the long haul, introduced them to each other via our wifi, then left for a chorus performance that evening.

Forward Motion

Pin basting--YAY!

This is what makes me feel as though I'm really making progress: getting out the binder clips, unrolling a hunk of batting, and pouring out the safety pins.

Not final, not by a long shot

In light of the events of the past two weeks, the title of my previous post might be construed to mean it was my final entry.

Obviously (since you're reading this), that was not the case. What is the case is that I'm back in Portland, caring for my dying father, and visiting my mother (now living in Memory Care) every other day. I've no plans for posts ('Look! I put in a few more stitches in my hand-sewing project!'), but then again, I've no plans, period. Every day is fluid around here!

See you on the flip side,

Carolyn

Blue Hair

I (finally) noticed this during the last round of ironing:

but instead of being all

I just let Dr. Rick be my Parental-Life Coach (0:19 in the video): "We all see it. We a-a-a-all see it."

I'll let it exist without giving it a second glance. Zen and the Art of Quilt Construction.

Chain Cha-ain Cha-a-a-a-ain

Been matching and sewing in spurts of 56, small neutral units sewn to longer dark units, getting them all sewn before turning on the iron.

I don't like to keep the iron plugged in all day for a little ironing here, a little there, unless the project absolutely requires it. Even with the auto-off feature, it still draws power unnecessarily. So all these are hanging about waiting for the ironing marathon to follow.

1416

I rarely construct a quilt from a published pattern, so preparing all the pieces beforehand for my Hubris project is quite a departure for me. I cut as many 1-1/2" strips as I thought I'd ever need from several dark and neutral fabrics (scraps, FQs, and yardage), then stacked 5 strips and started sub-cutting into specific log sizes. To help me keep track, I made a spreadsheet,

crossing off each size as it was fulfilled.

This went on for days, and I was constantly going back to my black/brown/grey and the neutral fabrics to cut more 1-1/2" strips. After a couple of days of this I succumbed to curiosity and called up the total of columns B and C: 1,416 logs to be cut! At that point I was slightly less than 1/2-way through, but at least I understood why it was taking so long.

Surreality

I realized yesterday while I was listening to my favorite news programs, that it felt a LOT like listening to coverage of pending hurricanes descending upon far-off coasts--interesting, riveting sometimes, but only brushing the periphery of my life, if at all.

Sewing the first borders onto the Wonky Star top is my immediate reality.

Still lurking about

So, some of this happened yesterday, finally.

At the end of May, this had been entirely clear of vegetation, with a fresh layer of sand put down in expectation of 12" pavers to follow. Then I had an encounter with "leaflets three" from which I slowly recovered during our hot, dry summer. Nature stepped in to fill that sandy void I left.

Tuesday we had a good rain, at long last, leaving the ground soft and manageable. Wednesday morning I popped out and pulled things up until my eyesight was too compromised with sweat (even with a bandana around my forehead) to be able to distinguish things properly. Three or four more passes should get the remaining plants uprooted and tossed in the bin (which is full now anyway, so I'm in no hurry today).

Now I'm off to make some headway in the sewing room. The day's To-Do List has been completed, and I'm in the mood for sewing up some mindless QAYG string blocks.

Couldn't see the forest...

Do you see it?

Let me give you another view:

There's a wide swath of light where there should be a nice checkerboard effect:

Upon closer examination, it turns out it's my old buddy: the red square I thought I had fixed.

Too Many Tops!

The tops, they are accumulating:

Not so bad, you say? Here's the rest of the story (plus one on the design wall):

5 of my creation and a vintage/antique(?) I intend to repair, then quilt. Can you spot the MEQ?

So today this one was chosen to advance to the pinning table:

The selection technique is highly scientific: I have bindings for 3 quilts prepared and wrapped around one shuttle, and this one's is on top.

The backing fabric (flipped back over the top for the photo) was a delightful GoodWill/Op Shop find: an IKEA duvet cover. Once the seams were picked out, it yielded several yards of 80"-wide 100% cotton goodness. I still have plenty left to back a second quilt, which will probably be the uppermost flimsy shown in the top picture.