My post title is a riff on graffiti from the gladiators' barracks of Pompeii. Where I would like to visit someday.
Meantime!
*rolls up to the quarantine, 8 months late, bearing Starbucks*
Today I made bread!
They always end up looking vampiric when I cut smiley faces for vents. It's why I usually stick with either the pi symbol or a heart.
Writing word count: 453. Finally hitting some uber-sweet drama that I've been plotting for rather a long time.
Sewing: ten more Garden Party blocks done:
Which brings me up to forty blocks. But I haven't cut tomorrow's set out yet.
Today's writing word count: 533.
Today was a getting stuff done day! (Even I have those once in a while.)
I cooked, I cleaned, I finally got the baby quilts mailed off to my cousin and my friend. And I also got started on my next sewing project.
Bonnie Hunter's Garden Party! It's found in her Addicted To Scraps book.
Since these blocks finish at 5", it takes rather a lot of them to make a quilt! (The pattern calls for 100... but I kind of want to enlarge it slightly? 121 if I do.) I've got my next ten blocks cut and stacked, ready to stitch tomorrow.
Don't mind me while I just vanish for a week or so due to various stressors. I thought I would be able to just close my CNN tab after the Inauguration, you know? But nooo....
In any case, I asked Wonderful Husband to hold up a couple project finishes!
First off is the black and white baby quilt:
(And, yes, I also used the backing fabric for the hanging sleeve. Camouflage!)
So, three finishes in three weeks. A pace I am not likely to keep up, but it feels good to have a couple long-term UFOs done.
Speaking of which, guess what else I've been working on?
I've finally got all seventeen 4" trees done. Plus two more, because when I showed them this morning what I was working on, Jazzy wanted me to make him an "orange Christmas tree" and Squiddle wanted me to make him a red one. Mummy obliged, and their blocks are currently pinned to their bedroom walls. The empty space at the top is going to be filled with a star. Guess my next step is combing through my yellow fabrics again, and figuring out which star cookie cutter is the best size to use as an applique template.
Word count: 803. I got through two more prompt cards.
I also finished the black-and-white baby quilt, so that makes finish #3 for the year. And I've pulled apart the stuff stacked in/by my sewing area to try to continue getting everything organized and into a home place? Plus I unpacked another box in the garage that was mostly patterns.
I think I'm trying to figure out what my next project is going to be. Wish me luck!
Word count: 671. At this point I have done a complete lap of my plot thread cards, and am thinking I need to find my blanks to put in a couple more that are now coming into play.
I didn't do much sewing today, just getting the binding for the black-and-white baby quilt together, pressed, and ready to stitch.
I (and Wonderful Husband) did, however, end up reconnecting with an old friend who we haven't seen in person for... a decade or so? Certainly more than eight years, since he's never met either of our boys. It was lovely having about an hour-and-a-half Zoom call with Kyri, and hopefully we'll stay in closer contact from here on out.
No writing today. I'm stiff and sore for reasons unknown, and I'm counting last night's double writing for tonight's.
I finally got the Christmas tree stripped and everything holidayish except the outside decorations stored. I also finally set down a thick layer of straw inside the chicken run.
And I finally got this quilted:
I trimmed the leftover backing and cut it up for binding strips. But that is for tomorrow. Tonight is an early night.
Word count: 501.
We got caught up in the atmospheric river hitting Washington and Oregon last night. Wonderful Husband and I were up late enough that we caught it when the power went out. I thought it was a large truck rumbling past the front of our house, but then realized the various plugged in things were not throwing off their usual miniscule lights, and Wonderful Husband said it was probably our local transformer going. Which makes me wonder where it's located, that we could hear that. We only lost power for about two and a half hours, though, which is much better than my parents and sister experienced, over on the other side of the Sound.
There's small branches strewn all over the lawns today, but no major damage except for this:
A copse of trees between us and the neighbors came down on our side. I texted them about it, and I think they're in agreement that we need to take the trees out. (We certainly weren't going to do it without asking them, but it's good that we're in agreement.)
Got all my homework done, and got through writing class relatively unscathed. Other than some of my classmates' confusion at who some of the characters were (which is fair, it's been two years, and my summary was not all-comprehensive), I ended up with only two minor edits to my five pages.
The rainbow mermaid quilt got washed and dried, and I'm about three-quarters done with stitching the hanging sleeves and label onto the back of the Christmas stars wallhanging.
Word count: 481. Backtracked one card, added on another page from another PoV, and suddenly I could work on that next plot thread card that was giving me difficulty. And it looks/feels like the next one up will slot neatly into place also. I'm dumping a whole bunch of separate near-disasters on my characters' heads at once. Well, if nothing else, I've got the tension and conflict down for these scenes!
I also finished the rainbow mermaid baby quilt. And got Squiddle to his vision therapy appointment, and doing his exercises this evening. And cooked dinner. So overall, a win-win day.
Tomorrow is going to be a Zoom call with one of Jazzy's teachers, editing six entries by my fellow writing students, so roughly thirty pages, and then writing class in the evening. Oof. I'm tired already. Will have to see if I can get my writing done earlier in the day tomorrow....
Word count: 512. Stuck on the next plot thread card. Don't think there's anything I can do right now to move it along, may skip to the next one.
Have the binding halfway finished on the rainbow mermaid quilt. Have started hand-stitching the hanging sleeves on the Christmas stars wallhanging.
Word count: 416. Leaving off in the middle of a scene because it's meaty, conflict-filled, and I need to ruminate a few more hours on what bombshells are getting dropped in the middle of it.
I took the boys over to my parents' for a few hours today so they could play with Niecelet, who my parents care for a couple days a week, as my sister does several days of back-to-back 12-hour shifts. It all went mostly well, until it was time for us to leave and Niecelet threw a small fit because she wanted to go home too.
I also finished the bulk of the quilting on the rainbow mermaid quilt. I was failing at figuring out what to do for the center section, with the mermaid panel, until Wonderful Husband suggested quilting waves - literally just wavy lines - into it to simulate water currents. Brilliant man! So next is trimming it, making the binding, sewing on the binding, and then finishing quilting that outermost white border.
Word count: 531.
It's been... an eventful few days, historically. Which have left me too stressed to write. Let me just say that (a) I am thankful Trump's reign will be over soon, (b) I am thankful that social media platforms have finally gotten off their lazy asses and stopped promulgating his hatefulness because it's become socially too expensive for them, and (c) I hope he gets impeached again and barred from holding future public office. He is not fit for it.
ETA: I forgot to mention the actual tears of relief/joy I cried when I learned that Georgia's races both went to the Democrats. A nice parallel to that night I spent crying when Trump won in 2016. Stacey Abrams and her people are amazing and incredible.
Beyond that, on the quilting front I got all the straight-line stitching done on the rainbow mermaid quilt, as well as the free-motion quilting on the red, orange, and yellow rows. I'm a quarter of the way through the green, but stopped for the night since I don't like to be running the sewing machine while the boys are trying to sleep. I'm still debating what to do with the center purple mermaid panel. Outline some of the motifs? Do clamshells?
And, there. I have just submitted my first set of pages to my writing class in... well, ages. Since before we moved, certainly! See, this writing resolution is a good thing for me.
Ugh. No word count today. I did finish the library book I was reading (Hope on the Inside, by Marie Bostwick - quite good, though I'm not sure if it's one I'll be purchasing a copy of) and I also worked through the 35 pages of editing my classmates' writing for class tomorrow night.
I finished stitching the binding down on the wallhanging, and started the straight-line quilting for the rainbow mermaid quilt, though I didn't even get one full round done.
Mostly, though, I was being mama today, and herding children. To get up, to get dressed, to eat, to get to the school bus, to do their online lessons, to go to their vision appointment, to finish their online lessons...
...and now, rather than staying up writing, I am going to herd myself into going to bed only half an hour late.
'Night, y'all.
Word count: 501.
No pictures today, I'm afraid, as all my stitching was sitting on Squiddle's bed and hand-sewing the binding for the wallhanging down. I'm... somewhere between half and three-quarters done. Given Squiddle has his first vision therapy appointment tomorrow, I'm guessing I'll finish it in the office during that, maybe? Still need to do hanging sleeves and a label, though.
My fingers started cramping up during the sewing, though, so I went out into the garage in search of my binding clips. Found them in only the second box I tried! But that prompted some further deboxing and fabric consolidation this evening, while the rice for dinner was soaking. I got four boxes sorted and flattened, as well as three others that had been hanging around out there, empty. But I counted all the totes of fabric I have, and... way too many. Fifteen. No buying fabric this year! Only basting spray.
Word count: 692.
I didn't get much sewing done today, because it ended up being a non-rainy afternoon, so I did some gardening. I got the tulips my neighbor gave me a couple months ago finally planted in the rhubarb bed, and I took the strawberry runners I've been rooting and planted them, turning last year's tomato bed into next year's strawberry bed.
I did, however, get the label written out and attached for the rainbow mermaid quilt!
So now that's ready for quilting.
But today's story, however, is about what happened a week ago today! I had gone up to Port Orchard, to find more of the green fabric for the rainbow mermaid quilt at JoAnn Fabrics. And since I was there and it's very close by, I popped into Goodwill. Where there was this:
A Singer 27, in a seven-drawer cabinet. I checked the drawers and they were empty - no sign of the missing front slide plate or bobbin shuttle. A moderate amount of wear on the table and on the decals. But both the machine and the treadle moved freely, and more importantly, when I checked its serial number, it dated to 1894. A 126-year-old sewing machine.
It was $100. Not out of budget. But did I have space for it? Where would it go? I walked away and debated and agonized on it for three days. I arranged to meet up and go thrifting with my mother and sister on Tuesday, and told myself if it was still there, I would get it.
They got to the store first, and were going to place a hold on it for me. But as they walked in, a sales ticket was being written up for the machine.
Beaten by ten minutes.
So, the one that got away. *points up at post title*
I'm a little wistful about it, but not crushed. If it was meant to be, someone else wouldn't've been ten minutes faster. (Still, sewing on something that old would have been awesome!)
And I'm thinking about where I could put the treadle I do have, so I could finish converting the Singer 201 in it to treadle-ability, and sew on that.
Today's word count: 605.
When I got up this morning, during the quiet hour and a half before anyone else rose, I worked more on quilting the wallhanging.
I was having some bobbin tension issues, so eventually I tried to tighten the bobbin case screw, only to find that the (gun) screwdriver kit I have for sewing machine maintenance did not have anything tiny enough for the bobbin screw! So I rummaged through Wonderful Husband's office, since I knew there's a glasses repair kit in there somewhere. However, as he's been doing a massive clean and tidy in there this week, I couldn't find it. But I did find a box cutter, which I made work.
And I got the wallhanging trimmed, and the binding sewn on. I must say, my usual method of machine-stitching the binding on both sides goes faster, but I suppose I wanted a finer finish on this? In any case, I only stitched one length of thread down because it occurred to me that it might be a good project to do while sitting in Squiddle's room and silently keeping him on target for schoolwork this week.
And I got two more blocks for the Vintage Valentine done. Since there was a bit of red binding left over from the wallhanging, I tossed it into the mix. I think it works well on that upper block.
Next, I reset my machine and start in on the baby quilts!
Writing, day 1: 565 words.
I didn't stay up until midnight on New Year's. I do remember waking up briefly when Wonderful Husband came to bed at 12:03, but, really, I chose sleep and chipping away at my exhaustion over listening to another hour of people shooting off fireworks.
When I got up, I fed the cat, let the chickens out, and got the Christmas wallhanging basted. I then spent a fair amount of the morning doing cleaning - getting the kitchen back in shape, and sorting and returning to the boxes in the garage all the fabrics I've allowed to build up in my sewing space while working pedal-to-the-metal on Christmas quilts. I folded and stowed the ironing board, since I won't need it for a bit, and set up a small ironing space atop one of my sewing desks instead. There is ever so much more space now!
January's color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is pink! So I've decided to use up some tiny scraps that I got from Quilters By The Bay's last in-person sewing session:
I'm using them to make Temecula Quilt Company's Vintage Valentine! I got the first two tiny blocks done this afternoon:
I also pulled out my stainless steel kitchen bowls and found three that worked for outer, middle, and inner markings for feather wreaths on the Christmas wallhanging. So that got marked and I've got one quilted so far... we'll see if I do any others tonight.
