Charity Quilt Top

I had guild meeting this week - and it's the one of the three guilds I'm in that I'm currently attending.  Kind of have to, since I'm Secretary.  The other two... well, one meets during the day, and the boys are on summer vacation, so that's currently out.  The other one I haven't been to in quite a while, as I can't take Squiddle to his vision therapy and make it to the meeting.  But at some point he'll be done with that, who knows when.

Anyhow!  I had undertaken to make two more blocks of this set, after the guild's last sew-in, and make them into a top.  But none of the blocks went together!  Since the Rainbow Scrap Challenge color of the month was red, I rifled through the bins of fabric I have for my guild's charity blocks, and pulled a few different reds.  And a cow print.  Sometimes, if nothing works together, you just have to go for a fabulous border, right?

The colors, I swear, were a bit richer in reality than they are in the photo.  But, regardless, scraps used up, top turned in, at some point it'll be a gender-neutral gift for some kid in the hospital or foster care.  Win!

That said, I am feeling a bit melancholy about not being at Costume College right now.  Though, as I understand it, there was a hotel workers strike going on last week, which I don't know if it's still continuing or if it's impacting the convention in any way.  I'm also getting hit with a bit of cognitive dissonance when I see pictures - the convention is at a new hotel this year, only the third since I started going.  The new hotel is quite close to LAX, which would make it very convenient for out-of-towners like me....  Maybe next year.  Hopefully Jazzy won't have Summer Boost school for reading improvement, if so.  Though at least that's done!  (Three weeks, getting him to school by 9 and picking up at noon, half an hour drive each way since, because of insufficient enrollment, the program at the local school was cancelled.  Not to mention afternoon swimming and rock climbing lessons for both boys.)

A Second Nutcracker Enters The Stage

 

Weekly update photo!  I've been working on this during my boys' swimming, rock climbing, and vision therapy sessions, as well as at other assorted times.  Most of which they don't have this coming week, so progress will be slower.  But all the backstitching on Herr Drosselmeyer is done.  Dark brown backstitching on top of black, by the way?  Is painful, tedious, and hard to see.  Bleh!

Nutcrackers!

Since neither of my potential quilt-holders are up yet (Jazzy is, but he's not tall enough to hold the donation quilt top up for display), I thought I'd post a couple pictures of the embroidery project I've picked up.

This is from a magazine from 1990 - Better Homes and Gardens Creative Ideas Cross Stitch Christmas.  The project was all done up to the point of the leftmost nutcracker's head.  He still doesn't have a face, technically, because I don't have the right shade in my stash.  I need to go buy sixteen skeins of embroidery floss later today in order to finish this work.  I only have six of the colors... and I definitely don't have enough black!

And here's what I was complaining about on the back:

Thread city, baby!  You can very easily tell where I took over on the hat and the second nutcracker's boots.  Having all those loose threads just hanging about is untidy and runs the risk of them showing through the white Aida cloth.  Not sure yet what I'll do about them.

Unpleasant Surprises

So.  I actually sewed some!  I'd taken home ten leftover 9" quilt blocks from our last guild charity sew-in.  I figured, if I made two more and sashed them and put on a border, it would make a decent size donation quilt top.  Except the one border turned into four borders, but I am actually reasonably proud of it because I think it works well and I pulled everything from the charity scrap boxes.  But!  I don't have a picture of it yet.

This would be because we're supposed to have gotten out heat pump installed today.  Which meant hauling all the boxes of my fabric and costume stuffs out to the barn.  But that got done!  And then we just needed to move the five big pots (four roses, one horseradish) along the back wall over to the side of the house, so the heat pump could go where they were.

We got two moved before I discovered the in-ground wasps' nest.

The hard way.

I got three or four stings out of it (three locations but one hurt a lot more than the others, so maybe I got stung twice there?) and we retreated indoors, calling (a) the installers, and (b) the pest control people.

So our furnace got replaced today, but the heat pump itself will have to wait until the end of the month.  The pest control people will be out on Tuesday.

And as I was watering various things this evening, I found two more in-ground wasps' nests, also near the house!

Fortunately, I am not allergic and the pain is mostly gone.  And in the process of moving stuff from the garage, I found a half-finished cross stitch kit I'd bought at my guild's Sewing Room Sale, and have started work on it.  I try hard not to be catty about other crafters' work, but let's just say the back is nowhere near as neat as the front.