So many hobbies!

It's sunny here!

 

I love Sanibel Island this time of year.  Especially compared to Michigan in winter.  The sunrise was beautiful this morning. 

 

The guy who makes the sand castles was here last week.  I don't know how he does it but this sand sculpture will look this good all through this week.  Apparently, this year he was working on spheres.

I'm lucky enough to be here with my parents and both of my sisters.  My mom tells us on a regular basis to behave ourselves.  If she wanted us to behave in public, she really shouldn't have let us spend so much time with Dad when we were growing up.  Dad's worse than we are!  Needless to say, we're having a great time.

 

Latest quilt back from the quilter

  

Try and look around the cats.  They wouldn't get down, well, not for very long.  Anyway, it's done but for the binding.  It's also a bit brighter than this picture shows.

 

Here's a detail shot of the quilting.  Crystal did a beautiful job.  I love the flowers.

 

And a cute video of Galen.  You gotta love the butt wiggle.  Sorry it's so dark but I had to film using the overhead light.  The colors in the quilt are more accurate in the video than the photo above.

Lazy weekend

 

We had a lazy weekend, Tyr, Galen and I.  Tyr was spayed this weekend and she's been spending a lot of time sleeping.  Poor Galen misses his playmate and it's been up to me to keep him entertained.  I miss my little girl who's always into everything.  Healing takes a lot of energy and I expect she'll be sleeping a lot more than usual for the next week. 

While Tyr's been sleeping, I've been sewing.  I can't tell you what because it's a gift and the giftee reads my blog on occasion.  I've been trying to reduce some of the piles of stuff I've got laying around here and check some things off my To-do list at the same time.  Like these:

 

Cloth napkins for my friend, Sheri.  Sheri really wants a tear-drop trailer for camping and when I saw this fabric, I knew it would be perfect for her.  After seeing a wonderful hand-built tear-drop at Maryland last year, now I want a tear-drop trailer for camping.  Unfortunately, the kind of tear-drop I want is one of the great hand-built ones with all the bells and whistles.  I need to marry a carpenter!  In the meantime, though, I'll just have to stick with tent camping, which I still love.  I'm already psyched about Maryland this year and I've put in for time off from work for camping and the fiber festival. 

The remnant

You know how little kids will get attached to a favorite blanket and over time, that blanket slowly shreds and shrinks until it's little more than a slice of swiss cheese with a binding?  Galen has a favorite paper wad and every time he brings it to me to throw, there's less and less of it.  This is all that's left:

 

It's sad and pathetic but he still brings it to me to throw.  It's stiff with dried cat spit, has hardly any weight and is so non-aerodynamic, between that and the lack of weight, I can only through it a yard or two.  For all I know, this is the very first paper wad I every crumpled and threw for them.  Cats!

 

I've managed to get a bit of spinning done.  The singles I spun at work during breaks and lunches.  I splurged last year and bought myself a Golding spindle lazy kate.  The singles (which are Merino/silk/angora BTW) were spun on my .7 oz Golding ring spindle and I'm plying on my 1.2 oz. Golding ring spindle.  When the cats are napping, I pull down the lazy kate and start plying.  That's 2 oz. total of fiber.  The plying spindle is getting heavy.

The fabric I ordered to finish the quilt top came and... there isn't enough.  Clearly I had checked my brain at the door when I was doing the ordering and didn't bother to actually calculate how much I'd need.  So, another order has been placed.  And once again, I wait.  Words to the wise: measure and calculate before you order.  Sheesh!

My contest entry

 

So far.  This is what I worked on this weekend.  One of the rules for the contest is a monochromatic theme so, naturally, I chose blue.  And batik fabric.  Man, I love me some batiks!  The top isn't quite done.  I ordered some dark blue fabric to do another border around the outside.  I'm a bit concerned that the center square is too big.  Please, give me your opinion.  Is it okay or should I do something to it, like maybe some applique?  Like maybe a crescent moon (it's blue, there's a moon, I could call it "Once in a Blue Moon."  Too dorky?)  Once I finish the top, and I decide if I'm going to piece the back (probably), then I have to quilt it (another rule:  you do everything from start to finish).  I have until March 31st to get enough quilting practice in to so I can do a decent job on it.

This has been fun.  I'd never designed a quilt before without first getting some inspiration for someone else's quilt.  Even if I don't make it into the winner's circle, I'll get a quilt out of it that I'm proud of.  Cool.

I still knit

 

It's just a lot harder than is used to be.  You see, I have these two "helpers" who make a night of nice, calm knitting virtually impossible.  I've taken to knitting at work, waiting at the doctor's office and car repair shops, etc.  I'll be on vacation the first week of February so I anticipate lots of peaceful knitting and spinning (I'm bringing a drop spindle).  Drop spindling at home has the same problems knitting does.

The little quilt is done

 

The little quilt is finally done.  It took longer than usual to hand stitch the binding because I had two kittens "helping" me.  This bad boy is destined to live in the car during the winter for those extra cold days.

Keeping warm

A big pot of split pea soup!  Finally!  I tried all week to get to the soup but it didn't happen until today.  They were predicting sub-zero temps with the wind chill so I did all my grocery shopping last night and stayed in today.  It was a day of cuddling with the kittens, watching "The Scarlet Pimpernell" with Richard E. Grant, working on the binding for the little quilt and eating yummy soup.  I think the soup was so good because of the fantastic ham I got from my brother.  Yum!

 

This was my Christmas present from my sister.  I've wanted to make a colorbox quilt for a while and thanks to my sister, now I can.  I was going to go with black for the sashing but after seeing this quilt, I'm torn between black and white.  Of course, it's going to have to wait behind the two quilts I've got cut out but not assembled.  And, I've decided to join this contest and the deadline for the contest is March 31st.  While I hope I win, I have no doubts that other quilters with a lot more experience than myself will be joining.  Mostly, I'm joining to have fun and because, who knows, I might just win!

I learned a new one!

 

Gayle sent me a link to an origami page and I learned how to make this one:

 

Each ball has 30 separate folded pieces of paper.  The way they're folded, it makes pockets and tab A goes into slot B and voila:

 

I've ordered a book on polyhedral origami so expect to see more in the future.

Before and After

Sometimes, I dabble in origami.  This one's my favorite.

Before:

And after: