I'm Still Here

I'm still here and thinking about you, but I haven't been able to come up with anything interesting to say on the blog lately. Last week I even got my daughter to take some pictures for you.

I've been having computer problems, I have to go through a couple of blue screens before the system actually works, so it takes me longer than usual to get my day properly started. I think today I might have found and destroyed the culprit. Keep your fingers crossed. That, and work and classes and homework for classes have kept me busy. And let's be honest, new tv shows. And the book shuffling continues. I think it is when I don't have time to read that I wind up borrowing the most books. They all seem much more interesting. I also did some yard work to prepare it for winter. No, not the yard work most people do, mulching, turning beds, planting mums, etc. I just try to trim the hedges and mow the lawn so that it isn't an eyesore all winter.

And since I am busy, I also want to clean out the garage and the basement. Funny how those things don't occur on my to-do list when I have time to do them.

Also I have that dreaded coffee addiction. My body gets used to drinking coffee at hours in the morning I had forgotten even existed. Really, I think they are still part of "night". So on the weekend, when I think I can sleep in a couple of extra hours when it is actually morning, my head screams for coffee. And even when I have had said coffee, it still punishes me the rest of the day for being late with the coffee delivery.

I haven't gotten any quilting done, but I've been thinking about finishing all of them up as well. Since I don't have time to do them, I've got lots of motivation!

Finished!

When I let myself get tempted by the pattern Kim presented at Kim's Big Quilting Adventure, and gave myself permission to do Kim's Happy Jacks quilt, I gave myself severe mandates. "You must get it done, and you must get it done quickly. Kim's done three of these in a week, certainly you can get it done quickly as well." Well I'm nowhere near as quick as Kim, but I did keep my focus on this quilt, even to the point that other things on the to-do list were skipped, and now it is finished! Definitely one of my quickest finishes. The fabric choices were easy - the first fabric I find that works, is it. No agonizing over choices. The cutting was fine. The sewing was fine as well. Anything that wasn't, was trimmed off! The hardest part about the quilt was stopping. I wanted to make more pumpkins, and I wanted to make more faces. See, here is a photo of some scraps of fabric that fell onto the floor.

Library Shuffle

When you borrow things, there comes a time when you have to return them. I borrow lots of books from the library, and lately it has been a juggle on returning them. The library lets you borrow books for 28 days, and then you have to return them. Sometimes you can renew them, if nobody else wants it. The library lets you renew them online, but if someone else is reserving a book, then you can't renew it. Sometimes though, someone cancels a reservation on a book, or someone else returns theirs earlier, and then all of a sudden, you can renew a book.

I've had lots of books that are coming due soon. And I have been trying to read them in the order they are due, so I can get through them before I have to return them. Lately, there has been a lot of shifting, so that the book I thought was due first is able to be renewed. Or a book I thought I was going to renew when it is due is reserved and suddenly it is higher on the due date list.

I think I shifted between 4 books this month! I read some of it, only to find out something else is due earlier. Which is interesting in a way, because you make connections between topics you might not otherwise make. Bu there is pressure to read something fast, and suddenly the pressure is off on that book and on another one.

I thought I was doing pretty well with my little shuffling act, until my daughter sent me a message that I had an overdue library book. Apparently, I had checked it out on her card, so I hadn't included it in my library shuffle game. Want to know what book it is?

Seems ironic, doesn't it?

It's Kim's Fault

It's been pointed out that I have made a lot of blue quilts. And that's true, sort of. When I was pulling out photos of blue quilts, I found lots of them, and I probably didn't even get all of them. There were only a few other colors that I didn't include in the blue quilts post. I was trying to figure out why that is, because while I like blue, I don't really have a favorite color - or it changes from time to time. I think I've figured it out.

In the summer, I like to work with the coolness of blue. Since I look forward to summer in the spring, I can work with blue in the spring as well. And when autumn comes, I'm almost done with the blue quilt, so I go ahead and finish it off. By that time I am thinking of autumn colors, and start a quilt using those colors. The problem is, winter comes, and then the autumn colors are too dark, and I want to work on something bright and colorful. Since the days are shorter then, I don't get a chance to finish that off before spring is back and I am back to working with blue.

That may be the reason I keep getting tempted to work on something different from my blue stars. The weather is getting colder, and I haven't turned on the heat yet. The tree across the street is starting to turn colors. That, and people like Kim not only show beautiful quilts, but also give directions on how to make them. And since she made two and wrote up the directions in such a short time, surely I can whip something like that out too, right? Couple of hours tops, right? I am trying to make this from my stash only, but may have to buy a border fabric if I can't find a suitable one.

Besides, I have to make more (and finish) quilts in colors other than blue, so I can give you a proper show.

The fabric on the left is in the border of my Celebrate quilt, and will be used in my stack and whack quilt. The one on the right was used in some house blocks I made for a swap, and some other harvest color quilts. The yellow background was used in my daughter's Japanese quilt. The green stars in the sashing was in my summer swap quilt which I showed you recently.

Nothing Much

It's Wednesday already, and I haven't told you how my weekend went. I'm sorry for all of you who were holding your breath waiting for the update. You can breathe now. :)

My weekend went well, thank you for asking. We had another laundry weekend, but this time I spent time in CollegeTown doing college things. The professors talked about the economy - and I have come to the conclusion that the reason I don't understand isn't that I am stupid, it is that I don't trust people who just give me the big picture. I want to see the whole picture. They said $700 billion is just the beginning. Not what I wanted to hear, but that I can believe. Also watched some musical performances. My daughter even asked me what I thought of them. Imagine that - her talking to me, instead of me asking her a million questions to get a semblance of a conversation. It was wonderful.

The wonderfulness even overrode the migraine I developed and had much of the weekend.

Since then I have been looking at that to-do list. Since it might rain, I can't put weed killer on the weeds, and can't paint the garage door. There are things I can do - like wax the kitchen floor, but I was thinking I should do outside things while the weather was nice. I have done things, that are not on the list, but needed doing anyway. I do write it on the list so I can cross it off, but the list doesn't seem to be getting any shorter!

I have finished making all the stars. I just have to put them together into a top now. Kim has written a tutorial for a jack-o-lantern quilt that is so adorable. Right now I am thinking that I could quickly throw one of those together after the SITP is a top, since it is going to take a while to manually quilt it.

Shared Fabric

When I gave my daughter a quilt, I was showing her some fabric I had used in other quilts. She said she wouldn't remember, and really, she didn't care. I do, so I thought I would document the fabric I used in the stars. There was even some scrap fabric that I don't remember where I used originally, so I figure I'd better do it while I still remember the rest. You probably don't care either, but at least you get to see a mini quilt show of my quilts.



You are going to have to trust me about the shared fabric with this quilt, since this photograph doesn't show the shared fabric. The story maze quilt also has shared fabric with many of my other quilts.

I called the fabric green in this summer swap quilt, but I am calling it blue in the SITP.

I don't think I used the blue fabric in the SITP, but at least one of the background whites is shared. And no, I'm not going to take the time to see which one.

The crossed kayaks quilt also shares a white with Lilebeth's Garden, and probably with the SITP as well. It also shares a couple of the blues. I didn't have a lot of extra fabric in this quilt, and I used some in the denim circles quilt, and want to save the rest for the border.

This denim circle quilt also has a lot of fabric from many of my other quilts. This photograph shows some great matches. The white with blue flowers in the top left is from my Storm at Sea, and I have that fabric in the SITP as well. The second one, the flower bud, is from a dress my daughter and I were going to make, and I have that fabric in the SITP. The brighter blue underneath that one is in the Arkansas Snowflake, and either it, or another fabric from that quilt is also in the SITP. To the right of that - the solid blue, and the plaid one on top of it, are both from a simple quilt I made for my niece. Fabric from that quilt is in the SITP as well.

Here's the storm at sea. The white background fabric with tiny blue leaves is shared.

This is the Arkansas Snowflake. The snowflake print is shared.

Another blue quilt I made at about the same time. I gave this one away. I'm just showing it to you since I am showing the blue quilts, but maybe it is the source of the mystery fabric.







The dark blue fabric in the Evening Stars quilt is in the SITP.

I didn't think I had a lot of leftovers from this Kanji Wishes quilt, but I was excited to find a strip of blue batik and mottled fabric to add to the SITP.

Here's another one of my blue quilts. Most of the blocks are swapped blocks but I did add a few. Maybe the mystery fabric is from this quilt.

Here's another quilt that isn't blue but shares the white background fabric with the SITP.

Power

I've been watching TV while I have been ripping seams, and am trying to keep up with news and happenings. It constantly amazes me. You know the news - financial crisis, Hurricane Ike destroys things in Texas, election campaigning, etc. You know what our headlines are?

It is about electricity coming back to the city. Every station, every headline. All week. Yes, it is important stuff, but the electric company has been working all week getting power back. Right now 99% of the city has power, so they interview the 1% of people who don't have it. They have long extension cords from their neighbors across the street. I'm not saying it isn't inconvenient or important and shouldn't be in the news. They do need to keep the electric company accountable. I'm saying it doesn't have to be the leading story, every day. They spend five minutes on that. Then another five minutes to tell you the rest of the news. Then the rest of the time they talk about sports and weather. Yesterday, they finally talked about people returning to Texas to see their entire houses devastated.

Meggie was talking about watching John McCain on The View. Meggie is way over in Australia. The only reason I know Australia exists is because I saw it on a map, and some fellow bloggers say they live there. Oh and I watched a couple of Nature shows about parrots and crocodiles in Australia this week. I have no idea about their politics. I'm not saying I want to, but I just think that if we keep talking about the same thing every week, it keeps us from finding out about the other people who live in the world with us.