For The Record

Ellen and Abby have both posted lists of their UFOs (unfinished objects) on their blogs, and when they did, I thought, gosh, that's brave. I'm not sure I want to look at that list in black and white! Then I was cleaning out the sewing room this afternoon, and my husband said, "You ought to start a list of all the projects you have going. You might find something you completely forgot about."

So I'm starting a list. It's over on the right-hand side, and I'll be updating it as I find more things I forgot about. I am only including projects that I have already started and/or bought fabric for; maybe someday I'll start a wish list of things I want to work on in the future, but that's more than I can handle looking at right now! I'm also going to start a list of things I've finished, although that will have to wait for another day. Here's hoping the "finished" list grows faster than the "unfinished" list!

Kitten House

I had the day off work today (another great thing about having a job is that sometimes you can get paid for not going to work!), and I used some of that time to finish up Oliver's playhouse. I've been wanting to make him something he can scratch; not only are the commercially available cat toys pretty tacky, but he won't scratch any of them, so we needed a better solution.

I used SewTakeAHike's tutorial (which is currently not available online, although you can see pictures from her version here) and the fabric is from Deer Valley by Joel Dewberry, which I bought at CityCraft ages ago.

It didn't take long before Oliver wandered over to check it out, with Kate on his heels. She won't quite fit in there, though, and I'm not sure I can handle making a Kate-size playhouse!

I think he likes it! Now if I can just get him to scratch the inside of his house instead of the outside of our furniture, we'll really have something...

Project Notes:

Finished size: Approx. 15" x 18" and 20" high

Materials: Quilting fabric fused to single-sided heavy-duty interfacing

Overall impression: This project took a little longer than I was initially expecting (ha! not the first time I've said that!). But you have to cut out the shapes from both the fabric and the interfacing, fuse them together, zig zag stitch around the edges to keep them from fraying, and then sew it all together, so it does take a little time.

I had a hard time figuring out how to feed it through the sewing machine, especially at the end when I was sewing roof pieces on. I had this big, bulky house hanging off to the left side, and I struggled to get the pieces to feed through evenly. Then it looked a little smashed when I was done. I ironed it and then let it sit with heavy books in it to flatten the base back out, and I think that helped some, but you can still see that it's a little wonky; not the sturdiest construction job ever, but I still think it's pretty cute!

Wicked Good

Still not much crafting time around here lately; although I have made progress on a few projects, nothing's finished yet. Gotta keep working on that! In the meantime, though, I've been enjoying some other leisurely pursuits: Hanging out with friends!

I had coffee at Cafe Brazil with a dear friend on Saturday morning, and then I went to see Wicked at Dallas Summer Musicals with 2 friends from work that evening. (The great thing about having a job is that you get to have work friends -- and you make money you can spend going out with your new friends!). We had dinner at Sushi Zushi (try the Cosimo Roll, which is great if you like cream cheese and fried stuff) and then headed over to Fair Park to catch the show. This was my first time to see Wicked, and I was really impressed by the talent of the performers. Musicals at Fair Park always have some pretty awesome people-watching, too, so I had a great time!

Lacking Leisure Time

The last few months have definitely been a whirlwind! I started working full time back in March and I have to say, this whole "working for a living" thing is more work than I expected! I have a great job with wonderful colleagues, but it's taking me a while to get the hang of it.

And, as if that weren't enough to keep me from my sewing room, we decided that it would be a great time to move to a new house. So in the last few weeks we've gone from talking about neighborhoods to looking at houses, making an offer, getting financing, having an inspection done -- and finalizing a contract! We're closing in a couple weeks although we won't actually be moving until mid-summer. I'm pretty excited about the new place and I love our new neighborhood, but there is still a lot of work to be done (mainly PACKING! Yikes!).

So, yeah, not much time around here for sewing, unfortunately. I'm in the middle of 3 projects right now -- my Grandma's Christmas 2009/Flag Day 2010 quilt, a playhouse for Oliver, and a needlepoint project that I got my husband for Christmas. I'd also love to get a new quilt for our bed finished before we move, but that may be asking a little too much at this point. We'll see how things go!

Marching for Babies

This is my 2nd year to participate in the March for Babies event with my friend Debra. The walk is this coming Saturday, and I'm a little late signing up for our team (no big surprise there!). Anyway, I'm hoping to raise a modest $20 for the walk, and if you can spare a little to help out, I'd really appreciate it! You can click the link below for more information.

Thanks so much!

Happy Easter

1 Down

Ta da! I finished a quilt! Which was thoroughly inspected by Quality Control, aka Oliver T. Kitten, and, having passed, is in the process of being washed and dried before taking up residence on the living room sofa.

This is my happy quilt. I've wanted to make one ever since Ellen made hers, but I've been busy with other projects, life, etc. I finally started this one in January (or early Feb?) because I was cold and wanted to snuggle on the couch with it. I used the Avalon pattern from Material Obsession and modified it just a tiny bit, using only 9 fat quarters instead of 12. I was wanting a quick, easy lap quilt -- not much easier than sashing whole fat quarters together!

I wanted to use fabric that I had on hand, which I did, except the backing, which is a light gray solid (Kona Ash) and the binding, which I bought at CityCraft (it's a Michael Miller fabric but I forget from which line). The white is the same Kona solid I used in all the Christmas-gift quilts that I will share here eventually (when they are all finished...), and I got the fat quarters as a set last fall at a local quilt store in Missouri. As far as I can tell, the tan hummingbird fabric in the very center is from Moda Arcadia and the rest are a random assortment of leftovers that the people at the shop put together.

I love love love it. Yay for happy quilts!

Beth & Anna?

This isn't quite a Julie & Julia thing (for one thing, I am not promising to make all the recipes in Love Soup by any particular time, and for another, I am promising not to blog about every single one I do make). But I really really love this cookbook. So much that I bought one of Anna Thomas's earlier books, The Vegetarian Epicure. We're not even vegetarian. The food is just that good.

Anyway, this is what I had for lunch today, courtesy of Love Soup:

Leftover green soup with mushrooms (it looks a little brownish in this picture but it's really a dark dark green) and spinach pie. The pie took me 2 hours to make last night, but it is totally worth it. It's a combination of spinach, onions, 3 kinds of cheese and just enough eggs to glue it all together. The green soup is also really good, and it just feels healthy to eat a soup chock full of greens and other veggies.

In other news, I finished quilting 1 of the quilts (the 1 for me, of course!) last night, and I hope to finish up the binding today, so there really should be a picture of that coming up soon!

A Lack of Follow Through

Well, things have a way of not working out like I planned... I was planning to get a lot of sewing done, upload some pictures and write a few blog posts in the week following my last post. Turns out I spent the week knee-deep in home maintenance projects, which was a success on the having-a-functioning-home front but not so great for sewing or posting.

And then we left for India for 2 weeks so no blogging then. Now we're back and I have 2 weeks of laundry and a dirty house to deal with (how does it get dirty when we're not even here?!?).

So... pictures of all previously mentioned things coming soon, plus India pictures. Still have not finished those 2 quilts but have made a fair bit of progress, so those will hopefully be coming soon too.

I did officially pass the OT exam and receive my Texas license, so I'm ready to start working next week (no travel for me for a while!). I am also very, very relieved to have all that behind me. Whew!

Here's a sneak peek of India pictures to come. This is Humayun's tomb in Delhi. He was the grandfather of the shah who built the Taj Mahal, and the tomb (designed by his wife after he died suddenly) was a precursor to the Taj. It's a really beautiful place!

More coming soon (probably)!

Rip Van Winkle

I know I sound like a broken record, but I cannot believe how quickly time flies! Valentine's Day has come and gone, not to mention Christmas and New Year's, and I don't really know where all that time went or what I did with it while it was here.

To make a long story as short as possible, this is what I've been up to:

• In the last few weeks of 2009, I finished my 2nd (and final) internship, graduated with my master's degree in occupational therapy, and celebrated that graduation with family and friends. I sewed like crazy in the few days between graduation and Christmas, finishing my mother-in-law's Christmas present (a throw) in the nick of time. When it became obvious that the quilts for my mom and grandma weren't going to be done in time, I decided to give mom and grandma a quick preview while they were in town for graduation.
• The day after Christmas, my husband and I packed up and headed to Panama for a week of tropical birdwatching. We celebrated New Year's Eve on the rooftop deck of a former radio tower (now a jungle eco-lodge), trying to catch a glimpse of fireworks in the distance. Pictures of the trip to come!
• I finished the quilts for my mom and grandma and shipped them off to Missouri. I started the final Christmas quilt, for my other grandma, and hope to have that done soon. Pictures of all the quilts to come shortly.
• I took the national occupational therapy exam, which I have to pass to be able to practice as an OT. Official exam results due any day now!
• My husband and I took a quick weekend trip to Port Antonio, Jamaica. Pictures of that to come, too. (Don't worry, all this international jet-setting is about to come to a screeching halt when I start my new job next month!)
• Oliver developed an eye infection that required a drop of medicine in his eye 4-6 times a day for a week, which resulted in several unpleasant scratches for me and my dear husband (marriage is a partnership, right, so we split the job: I actually dropped the drops into the eye while my husband held the cat still). Fortunately, Oliver's eye recovered, and our wounds have pretty much healed, too. No pictures of those misadventures forthcoming.
• I bought Anna Thomas's new book, Love Soup, and have been cooking my way through it. So far I have made 3 green soups, a cauliflower bisque, and sopa de ajo (garlic soup). I have also made my own vegetable broth twice, and while it is a bit of work, I really like making my own broth! Yum.
• I decided I didn't have enough to do and I was tired of making quilts for other people, so I started a quilt for myself. It's nearly finished -- I just need to finish quilting it and then bind it up -- so I hope to have pictures of that soon, too.
• I went to the first meeting of the Dallas Modern Quilt Guild with Ellen. It was a lot of fun to meet new folks and see all the different things they've made. I love show and tell!

Well, that's basically all that's been going on around here over the last 7-8 weeks... Hopefully I'll have lots of news to share soon as I get quilts finished and pictures uploaded!