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.

Human Again

Not an excuse for my extended absence from here, but an excuse for my more recent absence, at least... Jazzy had his class field trip to the zoo on the 2nd.  I chaperoned.  There were enough chaperones that I only ended up in charge of him and one of his classmates, so it all worked out well.  After the field trip was over, literally as I was walking back to my car, I got a call from their school letting me know that Squiddle had thrown up in class.  Apparently his complaints of a sore throat that morning hadn't been nothing after all.  So I drove there, picked him up.  The next day was Saturday, and Jazzy came down with it as well then.  Fever, vomiting, sore throat.  They both took a few days off school and went back on Thursday.

Guess what I came down with that Friday?  The 9th.  And have been suffering from ever since?  I grant that after the first 48 hours it transitioned from the flu to severe head cold symptoms, thank goodness, but today, the 20th, is the first day I've finally felt somewhere around 90% human.  I have gone, in the interim, through more than a bottle each of DayQuil and NyQuil.  And at least Wonderful Husband seems to be immune (*knock on wood*) to whatever this bug is.

Just in time for tomorrow to be the boys' last day of school!

(And, unrelatedly, on our drive back from Squiddle's vision therapy today, he and I saw a couple of juvenile orcas off the Purdy Spit!  Four years living in the Puget Sound area, and this is the first time we've seen any.  'Twas glorious.)

Quilts, Done!

Friday evening, I finally took the last stitch on the binding for Squiddle's annual quilt, and tossed it through the wash with three color catchers.  They all came out a lovely crimson color!  So now both the boys have their quilts on their beds.  First, Squiddle's:

He wanted to rearrange the furniture in his room a week or so ago, so now his bed can be accessed from either side.  Which at least makes making the bed easier in the mornings!  Each square finishes at 2.5", so the quilt was 87.5" square before washing and drying, which probably tightened it up a bit.

And since Squiddle finally got his quilt, so did Jazzy:

A bit more cosmopolitan and grownup, perhaps?  But he asked for black and white and red and triangles, so that's what he got.  I don't have the measurements to hand, but I think it's a touch wider and a touch shorter than the other one.

Top, done!

So, I posted about seeing coyotes on Sunday morning.  On Monday morning, driving my boys to their bus stops, we saw another on the short street that leads into our tract.  It was clearly a different one because it had brown fur.  I tried to get a picture, but it disappeared into the brush before I could get my phone camera trained on it.  Still, the boys were very excited!  Haven't seen any since.

Also, the reason I drive my boys to their bus stops is that despite going to the same school, they ride different buses!  Squiddle tested into the district's advanced program, so he doesn't go to our local school but one about 10-15 minutes' drive in the other direction.  Jazzy wanted to go to the same school as his brother, so we applied for a transfer for him, and got it.  (I'm actually quite pleased; theirs is the only school in the district with a dedicated art teacher.)  But only students in the advance program can ride that bus.  So we were going to have to drive Jazzy to school each day.  BUT!  Since he has a speech delay, he has an IEP so he gets to ride on the IEP bus.  The problem is that the two buses arrive, morning and afternoon, about 30 minutes apart.  So it's easiest for me to take both of them at the same time, and keep them contained and entertained within the car.  Lately I've been reading Elephant in the Kitchen aloud while we wait for Jazzy's bus, and he seems to be enjoying it.  And in the afternoon, I do my own reading while waiting for the buses.

So, sewing-wise, I finished the Ugly 9-Patch top!

I had enough of the two greens left to cut and start sewing a pair of matching pillowcases.  I still need to piece a backing.  I found six yards of a lime green print in my stash that I have no idea when/how/why I acquired it, as well as a yard of a green-peas-on-white print that I will never use and want to get rid of.  So tomorrow I will piece those into a backing, and then worry about basting and quilting things.

Today, I've been focusing on writing.  I am posting about 4000 words a week on my story, and as of last night I only had about 1200 done.  Currently at 4490 words, and am calling the chapter done.  Victory!

Sunday Report

A bit of excitement this time-change morning!  (I would have gone back to bed after feeding the cat, but 15 minutes later Jazzy decided it was time for him to get up, sooo....)

But as I was sitting here at my desk, trying to work up the enthusiasm to do things, I saw a couple of neighborhood dogs frisking across the front lawn.  Except then I realized: those don't look like any of the neighborhood dogs I know.

I've lived here for three years, and while I've heard the local coyotes a time or two, I've never before seen any of them!  They're beautiful, and I'm excited, but they're also very much the reason we build our chicken coop to be Fort Knox, and the reason Sushi is an indoors-only cat.

So!  Things I have been working on.  I completed the top and backing for Squiddle's quilt:

They're currently draped across the guest bed with the door closed, to keep them smooth, flat, and free of cat fur until I can get them basted and ready to quilt.

Because!  I realized that I have a UFO (UnFinished Object) quilt due at my next two guild meetings.  For the one on the 22nd, I only need to have it done to a top, but for the one on April 5th, it's supposed to be finished!  So I pulled out the bag of (apparently) 157 blocks from the Ugly Fabrics 9-Patch Exchange I ran for the Orange County Quilt Guild several years ago:

I have one extra turquoise-and-black patch, which may go on the back.  For now, all the rows are sewn and pressed, waiting to be joined.  My plan is to get this to a finished top, bang together a backing, then get it and Squiddle's quilt basted one after another.

Progress, However Incremental

Went to the Gig Harbor quilt guild yesterday.  There was no Treasure Table this month, but I was able to drop off a book I'd culled, to go in next month's.  The program was Four Corners, so I learned about two techniques and two rulers that were new to me... none of which I think I'll ever use.  But!  It was good to learn things.  I also got to shill for new members for the shrunken Quilters By The Bay guild, so maybe that will do some good?  And, miracle of miracles, the meeting got out on time such that I didn't need to sneak out early to meet the boys' buses!

And!  I've now finished all forty-nine blocks for Squiddle's quilt.

Today I get to start stitching them together.  Then, after that's done, I get to make the backing, then start in on turning all those Ugly Nine-Patches into a quilt top, since that's now due at two separate guilds for a UFO challenge....