Did I show you this? A quilt made for a young lady who showed up a bit early, just after the first of the year.
all sorts of fun summer animals
and a close up of a few
obviously there has to be at least one elephant
since her parents are dedicated A’s fans
completed
and given to her parents on Saturday at the As game. And yes, Nina was there; hanging out in a front carrier and attempting to stuff just about everything in her mouth….
and before you make any comments about Golden Bears – yes I know this bear is not brown. Get over it.
Jacket back
What else?
My backer kit from the PDX Broadsides kickstarter arrived.
Relatable Content
This is a Filk/Folk group from Portland Oregon which I first heard at WesterCon a few years ago. I have a number of their other albums (electronically from BandCamp). The best track on the album is Rewind. I suggest you take a listen. Not that thrilled about the rest of the tracks – excellent quality, I am just not in my 30s. The t-shirt is from an earlier album/track Ultimate Riot.
or should that be owl followed by shirts? Nah, the shirts were completed long before dark when I started on the Owl
Feeding my puzzle addiction, I discovered a new purveyor of wooden puzzles. This particular manufacture has only a few available, and, as it turns out, they are made in China. Less expensive than the US made ones certainly. But the quality of the puzzles is certainly not the same standard. The owl wasn’t all that difficult to assemble, but the pieces didn’t fit as smoothly as I would have liked.
unique pieces, but no whimsy ones
The shirts – the theme today was books.
there is the elegance of reading
Books & Roses
which didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped
and then there is the reality of what is appealing to certain members of the family
the front still in the hoop
the back just prior to finishing
and before you scratch your head – the clothes pins are to keep excess fabric out of the way and avoiding it being caught either under the hoop or in the stitching area. I know this because…..Both shirts still need to be washed and a few threads trimmed. It is all progress as I am working my way down my bin of “garment blanks.”
We had a break in the middle of the day – I had a sewing machine in for service. George proved that his feet are up to par since he drove both down and back. Remember that we have a standard transmission, so if he was going to have foot pain, I am sure that it would have been triggered by the drive.
Done! Well almost. Mostly? Quilted anyway
The embroidery had been finished for a while. It was just tackling the quilting.which I did by the “quilt in the ditch” method, carefully outlining each square.
closeup of quilting around each square
Since there are six girls, each done four times each with rows of blank square between, could be considered a lot of fiddly work
the whole quilt, done but still pinned
the backing is bright – Perhaps too bright? Anyway – it is a soft and lovely polar fleece which just asks to be be cuddled.
the back, polar fleece
Now, to see if I can get the Eldest to turn the edges and sew the binding for me…..
Ok, not 60k, just 59159 stitches comprised of 7 different colors with 12 thread changes.
It took a while, but Robo was completed just shortly after 1300.
t-shirt background being dark – obviously
I have this sewing machine that is also capable of embroidery. Over the last two years I have accumulated various assorted items (towels, t-shirts, napkins, placemats, quilt squares) that are all lacking in “that special decorative touch.” To add to my insanity, there are a couple of websites (EmbroideryLibrary and UrbanThreads) that sell professionally digitized designs that stitch out perfectly.
You can see my dilemma, right? Besides the-oh so tempting sales, there is the occasional design that just announces that it perfect for [fill in name].
Which lead this afternoon to knocking unannounced on a Alison’s door with yesterday’s stitching project. This particular flower has a special meaning for her. And I could happily decrease my stack of towels by two.
This evening I completed the next two projects on my list-
They should be in the mail to Georgia later in the week. After that, I need to plan for my next victim. I have been told this is all “creative procrastination”. Oh, those outstanding papers. Right. 1 August start; expect whining.
Inspecting the invader
The Eldest is amused, but not enthralled by my flamingoes. She has an extensive side garden but has given me the evil eye when ever I have suggested “improvements.” Apparently, our tastes don’t exactly match. She is also the cat mom to Onyx and Ghost. When I saw this particular item while flamingo shopping, I just couldn’t resist.
Passing both the sniff and taste test (Cat Scan), I still don’t think this particular solar beastie will stay in the house.
Otherwise, I added a bit of color to my sewing area while planning my next embroidery projects.
except that it is!
My mind is blank, or rather, I am drawing a blank when trying to figure out whether or not I accomplished anything todayNo trip into SF.
No knitting. But dishes.
Errands – oh, right – Post Office – mailing out packages to Georgia and Ohio. Picking up pizza and fresh fruit at the grocery store. Driving to Richmond to pick up one son and getting backing fabric for the little girls quilt.
Otherwise? Trains –
the program list on the sewing machine
which
looks like this in progress
and winds up being a series of train cars –
along with the engine
on hand towels for a young man who keeps informing everyone that he “is the engineer.”
Since yesterday was a holiday – the waiting room at UCSF was jammed to the gills with both the Friday and Thursday patients. Since there was little to no traffic, the drive in went smoothly, the clinic was running at full speed and we were able to get out of San Francisco before what would normally be Friday afternoon traffic.
I was tired when we got home. Heading upstairs to finish off (finally) the one quilt, I pulled out the stitching and redid the quilting.
all but the binding
and then I moved on to this –
another Liberty Puzzle
with a lot of fun pieces
and decided I was just too tired to think about going to a baseball game. Sent off a message to a fellow member of the group that I wouldn’t be making the game. Then I pulled up At Bat (the app) and sent her off a second message. She concurred as well; Seattle was just to far to go in the next 30 minutes….
Sucks at the best of times. This morning was not one of those. In the future, I think there are two choices – either get on the interstate at University Avenue, work my way over to the left hand HOV lane and drive faster than a crawl. Or.. take the frontage road all the way on the Bay side to Powell Street and get on the freeway there which is just at the start of the maze and just short of where the HOV lane dumps in from the northbound branch of 580. I did the worst – got on in between University and Powell which meant there was no chance at all of getting safely across 5 lanes of traffic and having to spend more than 20 minutes crawling along between two freeway entrances.
The only good thing was that once we were past the start of the congestion we were able to access the right hand HOV lane and literally flew along the right fly-over looking down with sneers at all of those sitting in stopped traffic. HOV here is 3 people in the car which should explain why I had Noah up and about much earlier than his normal routine. Him getting sleep was much less relevant to me than shortening our car ride by an hour or more. Once past the toll plaza, the traffic wasn’t all that great but moving is much better than creeping or standing still.
I have finally figured out UCSF’s parking ramp. Having also appropriated Alex’s old wheelchair from its (final-not) resting place in the garage where it was stored just in case anyone would need it again, we made fast work of getting from the garage to the clinic. Yes, George can walk but he still is having significant foot pain so why would we make him hobble?
Appointment went well. Number of meds is not going to decrease anytime in the near future. OTOH, it is obvious that the stem cell transplant has taken hold.
I managed to finish embroidering the last of the little girls onto the quilt top.=
color gamp 3×6 embroidered
now it is just a matter of the backing, quilting and tossing it over to Shana for the finishing.
8/9 plus sashing
Still working on that last square. but have the first six sewn together and sashing prepared for the remaining sections. After looking at the polar fleece I had been planning on using, which was more butterflies, I decided to be sensible and picked up some solid aqua (JoAnn’s seems to always have a sale) .
Once I have that last square finishing, it will be a simple matter to run the quilt lines. Then it looks like the Eldest will finish the binding. Seems like she has a friend who had a lovely girl child end of March …. everything does find the proper home, doesn’t it?
I have kept thinking that there had to be a way to incorporate machine embroidery in quilt making. Rather than spend hours putting little pieces of cloth together in order to make squares. Instead, I should be able to spend hours changing threads on the sewing machine in order to embroider on a square.
Ok, it made more sense when I first started thinking about it.
butterfly
and I found all these lovely butterfly patterns. Plus, bright colored flannel with butterfly for sashing.
7/9 squares complete
and, of course, the three butterfly ballerinas. I wish I could say that the last two butterflies went as smoothly as the rest of the squares, but no. Which is why they aren’t yet completed.
on a towel
#50 cotton multi-color purple thread
yes, I can embroider a doily with the machine. Stitched on wash-a-way stabilizer, each takes about an hour (+/-) with the bobbin filled with matching thread since obviously both sides of the doily will be visible. No clue what I am going to do with them, but a whole lot faster than crocheting or knitting…..
Probably I should have spent more time today studying than I did. But I had signed up for a software class (embroidery) a couple of weeks ago. First I had purchased the software. Ravelry is dangerous. People give you all sorts of good ideas, many of which wind up being money out of the pocket. In this case, it was an excellent idea. Several days later I received a class list from Dublin Sewing Center. My new software had a class listed for today.
There is always a challenge, teaching a class on software. First you have to hope that everyone in the class understands how to do the basics on the computer they brought. Sadly, if you have 15 people, there are going to be some in the group who don’t. In this case we had about five. This included some with challenges involving inserting, opening and copying files from a flash drive.
The class was still worth it. There were a lot of things I probably could have figured out on my own (if I had thought about them, or read the manual rather than just looking a few things up).
Since I have been home –
dish towel
t-shirt
and flour sack towel
The flour sack dish towels are easy, the t-shirt is black and I will replace the photo when I have a picture in daylight.
but it is 2030 and time to get ready for the morning….
Don’t watch. Seriously, you don’t want to see this.
Cal was at Stanford today for the second of their two games. The first, Thursday, was at Haas Pavilion with Cal pulling out a win on Asha Thomas’ buzzer beating last basket. Today the favor was returned in spades. No clue what was going on, but baskets were missed, passes easily intercepted, literally a dozen opportunities lost. Stanford had its act together. It wasn’t pretty.
Then there was the heartbreaker of the Blackhawks beating the Wild 4-3 in overtime (Hockey, for those who don’t recognize the teams).
Otherwise, I spent a small amount of time on homework, but mostly worked on various embroidery projects. All told, six items completed. The cutest –
x two. reversed colors
were a pair of flour sack towels. The purple is called Orchid – that orange? Allegedly it is Devil Red.
Besides schematics on a lot of flour sack towels, I have been trying various designs on terry towels. It was a while ago, but there was Felix and Felicia (bib and towels). I messed around with a couple of other patterns and dumped them on Daughter #2 who always has a need for towels. Two dogs, one a golden retriever who loves water and mud.
And then I have a friend in Alabama. She wound up there secondary to job, family, and retirement from military fun and frolic.
Her daughter loves unicorns especially those from My Little Pony. I remember My Little Pony. That set/series/whatever has been around since my daughters were young. Until I looked, I had no idea that there was more than one unicorn involved. I just remembers a white unicorn which made sense. I mean really, who isn’t familiar with Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn? The movie by that name post dates the book. I will always vote book over movie. In this case, both book cover and animated movie had white as the color of the unicorn’s coat.
So I took one large unicorn design – mostly head, horn and a couple of flowers added for accent and fought my way through the design. Not the best, but it went out in the mail. Then I tried a different design on a hand towel. I still have a couple more patterns that I might want to try.
for the love of unicorns
and it is always fun to send things when they aren’t expected.
on an apron
UC Hastings College of Law has two buildings on McAllister in San Francisco. They lie across an intersection from each other. In the Admin building, besides offices, the second floor boasts a cafeteria called the Law Cafe which is open from 0700 and provides basic food options for students, faculty, and staff. Across the street is the classroom building. On the first floor, which in the US is the entry level, there is a small coffee stand which features coffees, various snack items and a cooler of yogurt, sandwiches, beverages, and wraps. There is some relation between the cafe and Peet’s Coffee. Q Cafe is staffed by trainers and trainees, the later of which seem to be making a transition from jobless/homeless to having a simply employment skill which can gain them a job and get them back on their feet.
Over this academic year, I have taken the opportunity at quiet times to speak with various workers. All seem to maintain a sense of humor and the student body seems to reciprocate. Coffee being such an essential portion of a student’s daily diet. Along with the other schematics I found, there was this one of a complex espresso machine. Adding it to an apron front just seemed like a natural idea. Besides, I have a couple of apron blanks.
Of course I do. It is part of my bad habit to want to be stocked on those items which I might need. When the kids were young I had a shelf in my closet that housed various items which could, on no notice, becomes presents for an event that they remembered on the way out the door. So why wouldn’t I have supplies on hand? Because I might never use them? Ok, I will grant you that. I have yarn, fiber, fabric, patterns that I probably will never use.
But anyway, I will drop off the apron in the morning.
flour sack towels
Everyone can always use dishtowels, right? I mean seriously. No matter how inventive dish-washer manufactures are, there are simply a number of items that don’t fit. Much less that favorite coffee mug or tea cup that is just right in your hand. Or various kitchen items that have been handed down in the family and are just too fragile to trust to modern standards of time and temperature. And, speaking of temperature – not all (or I really think most) plastics are truly dish-washer safe.
Growing up in the 1950s – we didn’t have a dishwasher. In fact, we didn’t have one in the 1960s either. Nor in the 1970s when I lived in various apartments during University, Med School or Residency. I washed dishes, I air dried dishes and occasionally used a dish towel if I needed a particular item NOW.
As I think back, I am not sure when a dishwasher became a standard appliance in my kitchen. Perhaps the 1990s? Thinking back that many living places and decades puts a strain on my memory. But there are some realities, even if you live in a location with enough resources to have one in your kitchen. If there are not several people in your household, you may run out of dishes before it is reasonable to run the dishwasher since you probably don’t use all that many items every day. It really isn’t particularly sanitary to leave items unwashed for days and days. It uses more water to rise/prewash dishes followed by a dishwasher cycle than it would to just wash the dishes in the first place.
All of these thoughts lead me to dishtowels. Everyone needs a few. Flour sack dishtowels, bought in bulk, are inexpensive and provide a wonderful blank canvas on which to test out machine embroidery. If it doesn’t look great – hey, it is a dishtowel. If it does? Hey, presto! I have just created a nice present.
Which leads me to the photo which started this particular discussion. If I am going to practice machine embroidery, the item should reflect the interests of the victim recipient, right? College guy is headed out for spring quarter. He is a science/engineering type. Since I haven’t found a schematic of a laser yet, he will have to settle for the microscope.
in spite of all my good intentions, I am heading to bed without completing an assignment due at 1420 tomorrow. On the surface, it seems to be an incredibly simple thing: take a list and turn it into an outline/table of contents. What turns out to be tricky is deciding what goes where, and why.
No problem – I can just take my favorite Army regulation and use that as a pattern – right? Except that civilian lawyers, especially those who have worked for various international organizations and NGOs just don’t think the same way as those of us who are steeped in the tradition of admin regulations.
And, as it turns out, the military is one of those exceptions to the APA (Administrative Procedures Act, 1946) so some of the standards which all of those who are US law school trained just don’t apply. One of the other students in this 8 person seminar has spent time related to military regulation drafting, he understands my point of view. But, being a law student, his attitudes are probably a bit more flexible than mine.
The upshot is that I knit four more rows on my Wild Swan – starting from here –
End of Chart F
Unlike a number of those in the KAL, I am not going to run out of beads. I have lots and lots of beads. Some of them are the wrong size or color, but I have the 250 that I will need to finish the shawl.
Yarn? That is another question. I think I have enough for maybe two more rows + the bind-off. The problem is that there are eight rows plus the bind off. I thought this might happen, so contacted Fierce Fibers two weeks ago and have a bit more on order in the darkest color. But it isn’t here yet…..
And then there was the embroidery tonight. Got through the pattern in spite repeated thread breakage (but no needle challenges) and bobbin snarls only to find that the last two colors shifted themselves right from where they belonged by about a cm. It is obvious. Really, really obvious since those two colors complete a frame around the main pattern. I am just glad it happened on a napkin. Not that expensive, I can try it again. But first – I need to figure out if it is the embroidery, the machine or me. Not inclined to repeat the same mistake.
And, oh, gee – it is too late to finish that outline. Or wire diagram. Or whatever the H it is.
Morning?