Sew I See!

I'm up in the wee small hours this morning... In search of the draft of a different blog post, I found this one.  I wrote this in mid-August, apparently.  Might as well publish it, I guess!   - - - - - - - Something made me think about a feature of the good old days of blogging-- namely, "memes", writing prompts, or questionnaires.  Sometimes they were very generic, fit for anyone writing any blog on any subject, but others were designed for one particular hobby or area of interest.   I haven't come across one of those in a while, and I had a sudden hankering for one, so I decided to write some questions of my own. Maybe it's a little silly to "interview" yourself, but that's okay.  I don't mind being a little silly, when the occasion calls for it.  😜   - - - - - - - Quilt-Maker's Questionnaire When it comes to quilt-making, are you a morning lark, a night owl, or something in between? Definitely not a night owl.  I'm too afra...

I don't have much progress to report, thanks to a little thing called Hurricane Sally.   **This turned out to be a long account of the storm, for my own future reference more than anything else.  Skip to the dashed line if you're only interested in crafty updates.** At first, it looked like we might get some rain and slightly blustery conditions at most, as the forecast cone took aim at New Orleans.  Then it inched further and further to the east, and we started paying closer attention.  Still, I wasn't expecting too much.  After all, this wasn't going to be a wind storm (so far as you can say that of any  hurricane).  The main threat was storm surge and localized flooding.  Our house isn't near any rivers, and we don't tend to flood, so I wasn't too  worried.  Still, I made sure to do laundry and keep dishes washed, then filled some containers with water for drinking and filled the tub for flushing the toilet.  (The joys of ha...

Since my last blog post, I've assembled the book blocks into two quilt tops.  For the first quilt top, I joined them in the plain old regular way, and for the second, I used the webbing method.  (This wasn't intentional.  I simply didn't remember to web them when I joined the first group.)   I webbed the blocks for the "Hunter's String Stars" quilt, and that seemed to work well, from what I remember, but with these blocks, I think I found the old-fashioned method easier.  Webbing does have the benefit of allowing you to not worry so much about which piece goes where, once you've joined the blocks in one direction, but it felt more difficult to get blocks properly lined up for perpendicular seams, even though they were webbed into place.  Anyway, webbing might not be best for everyone or every quilt.  When joining the rows the "old-fashioned" way, I marked each completed strip to help me keep them in the correct order.  You can do this with pi...

Another blog post, another photo of the slowly growing collection of "Tall Tale" blocks!  Yes, still working on those book blocks.  I think I've decided to make another column of seven blocks (per quilt)-- and that's in addition to the six blocks remaining to reach the original goal of forty-nine.  There should be plenty of time, but I'm still eager to finish so I can start something new without feeling guilty.   So, here's that latest photo of the design wall (where I'm running out of room!):   And the new batch of block kits ready to go: And in between, there's progress on the tray of bonus mini HSTs from the last finished quilt top.  The tray of stitched HSTs is slowly filling up.  Other little things happening around here: Donald's recovering from a painful case of strep throat, we killed a brown widow at our back door (and I think there are at least two others in need of "elimination")...

The "Tall Tales" quilt feels like it's picking up speed-- turning into a real page-turner, if you will. 😉  This is the sweet spot of the project, that part where you know exactly what you're doing in exactly what order.  You have it down to a science.  You're almost sad that you're past the halfway point.  (Well.  Almost. For one minute, before you move on to feeling that you can't wait to be done with it so you can start something different!) I'm up to 36 on the wall (one more added after I took this photo).  There are new kits on the table, ready to go. (Though some of these are already sewn and on the wall, replaced by yet more kits! Things are moving!) Soon I'll need to figure out whether 49 is enough or if I should size up to 56 books.  There's also the possibility of adding a border.  Maybe some string piecing... I'm not sure how that would look.  The strings might turn out to be more time-consuming than just working up another handf...

We're into August, now, pulling ourselves through summer one week at a time!  I've been feeling a little under the weather for the past few days.  Nothing too bad, but generally tired with a few nebulous symptoms that seem to come and go.  I suspect that a lot of it boils down to the typical failure to do what we all should (but not enough of us manage): getting sufficient sleep, managing stress, maintaining a healthy diet (including drinking enough water), and exercising.  I took a two-hour (or longer?) nap Sunday afternoon, which is almost unheard of for me.  I'm not a big napper, generally, but sometimes you need that extra sleep, no matter when you can grab it. - - - - - - - I'm still chugging along with the "Tall Tales" quilt.  Slowly, but making progress.  I probably average about a block a day, slowed down by the days I'm putting together new "kits" and those other days when I spend no time working on it at all.  These blocks seem like the...

Where I live in southern Alabama, summer isn't one of those "blink and you'll miss it" affairs.  No, our summers tend to arrive early-- usually before I'm anywhere near prepared-- take a look around, decide they like the place, and settle in for month upon steamy month, often lingering (stubbornly impervious to polite hints that they've overstayed their welcome) until October finally comes along to boot them out.  To be honest, I sometimes wish I could go to sleep in June and wake up in late September, just to escape the heat and humidity.  Sure, I'd be missing out on a large percentage of my life, but it'd only be the summer part, so is it really that much of a loss? 😉 Since human summertime hibernation isn't yet a possibility, the next best thing is to pretend it's already autumn (maybe read something spookily Octoberish and play some "autumn ambiance" videos on YouTube), and distract yourself with an engrossing project or two....

Mister Frodo (and Luna, Trixie, and the rest of us) wish you a belated Happy Independence Day!  It's been a bit of an odd one-- a quiet weekend for us, except for the noise of neighbors' fireworks last night-- but it was peacefully pleasant.  Homemade burgers and fries, movie and TV on the comfy couch, some games, sleeping late every morning, and plenty of time to relax and just do "whatever".  (What more could an introverted homebody ask? ...Maybe a little more of it before things get back to what passes for normal these days? 😉) - - - - - - - Before turning the page on the calendar, I snapped a photo of part of the picture for June: "Dragonflies are a great help to the mosquito population." I know  it means that dragonflies help control  the mosquito population by eating them (ew, gross!) , but I keep getting this mental image of dragonflies dropping off food and supplies to poor mosquito communities... Maybe pitching in to help them buil...

I try to have only one doily project going at a time, because otherwise, one gets pushed to the side, and I lose interest.  The subject of this blog post has been my "in-progress" doily since the end of last November.  It shouldn't have taken so long to finish, because it's not particularly large or difficult, compared to other patterns I've crocheted.  I guess I was just distracted by other (non-doily) projects... And maybe my reluctance to crochet on it was partly due to the fact that I used dark thread, which is more difficult to see than lighter colors. Whatever the reason, this finish has been a long time coming, so I'm even more excited than usual to have it done! The pattern is "Tavra", by Grace Fearon. Based on the stated yardage requirements, I thought it wise to have three balls of thread in the same color and dye-lot, but as it turned out, two were enough.  If I'd known that, I wouldn't have chosen this dark purple thread ...