This was a Thanksgiving of firsts for me.
The first Thanksgiving I've ever cooked the meal. The first Thanksgiving spent at my apartment. The first Thanksgiving without my mom.
All in all, it went pretty good. The food turned out better than I expected (my brothers said they loved it; tasted alright to me, so I guess they're being honest), my apartment looked awesome, and I got to eat Thanksgiving dinner (or in our case, lunch) with my oldest brother for the first time 13 years! (I also got to show off a few quilt tops to a captive audience!)
I kicked them all out, of course, before the "football game watching" could commence (in order for me to play Zelda, which I did - for three hours).
- I cut fabric out for a quilt for one of my bosses - this one I'm calling "In The Sea", and it's using the same Kaleidoscopic Kites pattern I used previously.
- I worked a little on the LouLouthi row - I'm now about halfway done with it. Every time I look at this quilt, I'm enraptured! I love Anna Maria Horner's work, and all of the different LouLouthi substrates have been enchanting - I can't wait for the velveteens to come out, because I'm really looking foward to working with them!
- I watched Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. "I have always been, and will always be, your friend." Spock + Kirk are like the best buds ever. (Except for me and my best bud!)
-I also got a couple new books! "Alice in Wonderland" and "Peter Pan", featuring the art of Mary Blair ... I'm loving them! And I bought "Scrap Republic" by Emily Cier, which is excellent. I'm looking forward to delving into my (carefully saved) scraps now, for sure!
- I bought Star Trek: Season 2. I love this show - and I'm glad it's coming in the mail, because I'll be saving the watching of it for my vacation next month! Yay!
That's about it for today. This afternoon, my brother and I are off to Barnes and Noble and Fry's; he's got money in his pocket and it's bothering him. (If only all of us had these problems ... sigh!) Later days!
- Katie
Friday, November 25, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
sleep exhaustion, winning, and a genius alarm system.
I did it. I finished my Prince Charming Log Cabin - and I'm just tickled pink (excuse my pun)! No pictures thus far; I need a guy or two to hold it up whilst I photograph, and so far none of us have been off on the same days!
In order to complete said quilt top, I stayed up all night, ripping out the seams on the sashing, reattaching the blocks in proper order, and then reattaching the blocks. I actually had it finished and hung in the closet around 3:00 A.M., which left me (sadly) with: two hours until the burrito shop opened, three hours until first light (and, therefore, the return of my willingness to go and grab my laundry, due to fear of a.) the dark and b.) zombies) (my apartment is right on the street, but there's a fence on one side of my sidewalk and giant bushes right in front of all our apartments, which oddly makes it creepier), and six hours until I had to be at work for a delivery.
In the time until the delivery, I completed more blocks for my Poseidon Greek Cross (I need to cut some more fabric out for that one) and worked on my LouLouthi Flannels Chevron. I also watched about half of Doom, which is a terrible horror movie by some standards, but I like it just fine.
I also rigged up a genius alarm system for myself. My problem is that I'm actually unable to hear the alarm I currently have set: I sleep right through it. I sleep right through FOUR of it, and wake up about two hours later than I wanted.
So I changed it up. I set each alarm on my phone - all 15 minutes apart - to a new tone, each more annoying and jarring than the last. One of those was even the ringtone I gave my ex-boyfriend, which was kind of terrifying at six in the morning. But it worked! I heard EVERY ONE! I am so smart I scare MYSELF sometimes. (I also frighten myself with my extreme modesty).
So now, with Thanksgiving on the way and two days of complete laziness ahead, what to do? Here are my plans:
- Paint my nails. Possibly.
- Play ZELDA. I GOT THIS GAME ON SUNDAY AND I AM RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED. IF NO ONE EVER SEES ME AGAIN, I'VE BECOME PART OF THE GAME AND I'M VERY HAPPY.
- Sew another row to LouLouthi flannels. I'm loving this quilt's look!
- Cut fabric for Poseidon and for other quilts, bag it and tag it!
- Bake pies. And rolls, and cook mashed potatoes, and also ham at my house because my Dad threw his oven down the stairs last spring (in his defense, this would have been the first occasion where the thing MIGHT have come in handy since that day. So he was kind of right).
- Find my brother's "legal, you were born here, and you exist" paperwork. Boy needs a photo ID and a bank account like I need a vacation.
So there you are! Be back later with my "achievements".
In order to complete said quilt top, I stayed up all night, ripping out the seams on the sashing, reattaching the blocks in proper order, and then reattaching the blocks. I actually had it finished and hung in the closet around 3:00 A.M., which left me (sadly) with: two hours until the burrito shop opened, three hours until first light (and, therefore, the return of my willingness to go and grab my laundry, due to fear of a.) the dark and b.) zombies) (my apartment is right on the street, but there's a fence on one side of my sidewalk and giant bushes right in front of all our apartments, which oddly makes it creepier), and six hours until I had to be at work for a delivery.
In the time until the delivery, I completed more blocks for my Poseidon Greek Cross (I need to cut some more fabric out for that one) and worked on my LouLouthi Flannels Chevron. I also watched about half of Doom, which is a terrible horror movie by some standards, but I like it just fine.
I also rigged up a genius alarm system for myself. My problem is that I'm actually unable to hear the alarm I currently have set: I sleep right through it. I sleep right through FOUR of it, and wake up about two hours later than I wanted.
So I changed it up. I set each alarm on my phone - all 15 minutes apart - to a new tone, each more annoying and jarring than the last. One of those was even the ringtone I gave my ex-boyfriend, which was kind of terrifying at six in the morning. But it worked! I heard EVERY ONE! I am so smart I scare MYSELF sometimes. (I also frighten myself with my extreme modesty).
So now, with Thanksgiving on the way and two days of complete laziness ahead, what to do? Here are my plans:
- Paint my nails. Possibly.
- Play ZELDA. I GOT THIS GAME ON SUNDAY AND I AM RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED. IF NO ONE EVER SEES ME AGAIN, I'VE BECOME PART OF THE GAME AND I'M VERY HAPPY.
- Sew another row to LouLouthi flannels. I'm loving this quilt's look!
- Cut fabric for Poseidon and for other quilts, bag it and tag it!
- Bake pies. And rolls, and cook mashed potatoes, and also ham at my house because my Dad threw his oven down the stairs last spring (in his defense, this would have been the first occasion where the thing MIGHT have come in handy since that day. So he was kind of right).
- Find my brother's "legal, you were born here, and you exist" paperwork. Boy needs a photo ID and a bank account like I need a vacation.
So there you are! Be back later with my "achievements".
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Frustruating
There are very few things I do that don't have a specific order. For me, the planning is part of the fun: I don't like to throw things together - to quote my mother - "all lolly-gaggle". I don't want to go into a project and not KNOW what I'm going to have as an end result. For that reason, I always plan out out my quilts on graph paper first - even if I'm using a pattern, I'll usually graph out what prints go where as a point of reference. I then "block off" those areas I've finished.
A big reason for my fussiness is my problem with directions. I can read a pattern ten times, but I usually don't understand it until I've gone through it myself. I can't read driving directions, and I can't understand them when they're spoken to me. Usually, the only way I can get from A to B is to have someone directing me as I go (who is, of course, able to understand directions - my little brother and I have been lost many a time because neither of us really can). Once I've gone down that road once, though, I'll remember how to get there the next time with no help at all.
Quilting is, essentially, the same. Two of the quilts I'm working on now - the Prince Charming Log Cabin and the LouLouthi Flannels Chevron - have patterns that I worked out myself, with colors and fabrics in very specific places, that require me to look at the graph every time I work on it. I've had a few problems with the flannel quilt, and had to recut flannel squares and re-do certain parts (because seam-ripping flannel is terrifying). But as long as I'm paying attention, everything is all good.
Last night, I was very close to finishing my Log Cabin quilt top. I'm trying to get this project out of the way because, as much as I love it, I need to work on Christmas projects and this top's unfinished state is taunting me as I walk through my apartment.
I was very close to finishing it until I realized that the blocks weren't lining up right. The colors are supposed to match diagonally - indigo, red, green, honey, ingido might go across, and then the next row would be honey, ingido, red, green, honey, or so on. But I had switched the red and green in one row, and so they lined up vertically instead. I just about gave up there, but spent about fifteen minutes seam ripping and resolving to fix that row (luckily, the only one incorrectly sewn) before moving forward with anything else.
So you know what fun project I have waiting for me tonight! After that, I'm set on finishing that tonight and then starting on the cutting for one of my boss' quilt. I'll take pictures of the log cabin once it's daylight again! (For I quilt in the wee hours of the morning).
Until next time, later days!
A big reason for my fussiness is my problem with directions. I can read a pattern ten times, but I usually don't understand it until I've gone through it myself. I can't read driving directions, and I can't understand them when they're spoken to me. Usually, the only way I can get from A to B is to have someone directing me as I go (who is, of course, able to understand directions - my little brother and I have been lost many a time because neither of us really can). Once I've gone down that road once, though, I'll remember how to get there the next time with no help at all.
Quilting is, essentially, the same. Two of the quilts I'm working on now - the Prince Charming Log Cabin and the LouLouthi Flannels Chevron - have patterns that I worked out myself, with colors and fabrics in very specific places, that require me to look at the graph every time I work on it. I've had a few problems with the flannel quilt, and had to recut flannel squares and re-do certain parts (because seam-ripping flannel is terrifying). But as long as I'm paying attention, everything is all good.
Last night, I was very close to finishing my Log Cabin quilt top. I'm trying to get this project out of the way because, as much as I love it, I need to work on Christmas projects and this top's unfinished state is taunting me as I walk through my apartment.
I was very close to finishing it until I realized that the blocks weren't lining up right. The colors are supposed to match diagonally - indigo, red, green, honey, ingido might go across, and then the next row would be honey, ingido, red, green, honey, or so on. But I had switched the red and green in one row, and so they lined up vertically instead. I just about gave up there, but spent about fifteen minutes seam ripping and resolving to fix that row (luckily, the only one incorrectly sewn) before moving forward with anything else.
So you know what fun project I have waiting for me tonight! After that, I'm set on finishing that tonight and then starting on the cutting for one of my boss' quilt. I'll take pictures of the log cabin once it's daylight again! (For I quilt in the wee hours of the morning).
Until next time, later days!
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