Some Good Things

I have lots of good news to report tonight. First, I have finished quilting the center section of my Single Wedding Ring quilt, and am now working on the border. 1 1/2 sides are not quilted, so with any luck at all, I should be able to finish it up tomorrow. Then on Monday or Tuesday, I will go to Hong Kong to the Bernina dealer to pick up some presser feet. I am going to try Ricky Tims' binding method on this quilt.

Next, I successfully extended my wireless network by adding an access point, so now I can browse the web easily from my bedroom. Instead of the low quality connection I had, it now reads "very good" signal strength. Sometimes it even reads excellent. I was continually getting dropped connections in my bedroom, so that should now be fixed. Of course, the real question is whether having reliable Internet access from my bedroom is a good thing. Do I really need more time on the Internet? Probably not, LOL.

Another thing I am very excited about is that I will be able to attend a seminar with Diane Gaudynski when I go to the States this summer. I am so excited! For those of you not familiar with her, her website is here.

I have never been to a quilting class, and what a way to start! I found her site by accident one time, loved her quilts, and wrote her a question about batting and quilt stiffness. She was kind enough to answer. I am beginning to plan my trip to the US this summer, and it occurred to me that I could find a quilt show or workshop and take some classes. When I checked her website, it turned out she was going to be giving a seminar not more than a half hour from my brother's house. The shop has accepted me to the class and has agreed to let me use one of their sewing machines since I will not be dragging mine all that way!

Since I have no quilting pictures to share, here is one of our dog. She feels the need to check out any stuffed animals brought into the house. Here she has jumped up to the kitchen peninsula to find a present DS bought for me. I should have been discouraging this, but it was so funny I had to get a picture.

Not Today

I had every intention of finishing the center portion of my single wedding ring quilt today, but it does not look like it is going to happen. I have put a good amount of time into quilting today, but I ended up doing more ripping out than I had expected. When you have to join up two pieced blocks, there are a lot of HSTs coming together, and it did not always go smoothly. I also could never quite figure out how to press the blocks so the seams would interlock. I always ended up with some I needed to flip, and that made it hard to keep things accurate when putting everything together. For one pair of blocks, I first just did a really inadequate job of sewing them together and decided to rip it out. I am not usually too fussy, but this would not have passed the "riding on horseback at 50 yards" test. Then I redid it, and was happy to see that I had hit almost all the points in the right spots, only to find that I had sewed right side to wrong side...on the third try I finally got it right. But I had too many of those kinds of errors, and now the quilt is only partially sewn together and I am exhausted. I still have some time tomorrow morning, but after that I will probably have almost no time to sew for about 2 weeks because of meetings and people staying at my house. Maybe I will try again later tonight.

Sally thought I was spending entirely too much time at my sewing machine, too. She decided to take up this position to see if she could get me to change my mind. She kept leaning her head against the foot pedal. I would move it, and she would move just a bit closer. Silly dog, that won't stop me!

What are you looking at? I'm not doing anything!

Sally approves

of the flannel quilt backing. This is the first quilt that I have used flannel on, and I hung it on the Nordic Track last night so it did not get to wrinkled before the next time I got to work on it. Sally definitely approves of my fabric choice.

"I'm so cute, don't make me move!"

It is really a narrow space in there. I am glad she didn't end up getting stuck by the pins in it! Some of them have a tendency to pop open.Usually she stays off my quilts in progress, even when I have them out on the floor. had to force her to move so I could do my morning exercise.




"Okay, if I can't have the flannel one, I guess I can use this one." Please excuse the debris from DS getting ready for school.

A Dog's Life

Since finishing the Blue Marquee quilt top, I haven't done much of anything productive. I am rather dreading the sandwiching of the top, one of my least favorite parts of quilting. I made two charms, which were a hit with DS -- he was even offering my services to friends so that they could have one! I also pulled out my Red Out of the Box UFO, got it on the machine ready to quilt, and then had a guest arrive, so aside from putting the right color thread in the machine, nothing has actually been done.

So, in lieu of quilting: our dog.

Our dog, Sally, is very attuned to me (provider of food and walks). Usually when I wake up in the morning, Sally is waiting outside my bedroom door. All it takes is me breathing like I am awake to have her stationed outside the door, waiting for me to get up. On the rare occasion that I am up before her, I hear sudden scrambling sounds while she rushes to greet me. Accompanying the sound of her nails on the wooden floor, there is sometimes a muffled sound of ...dog on furniture. I have wondered if she was getting on the furniture while we are asleep, but usually the beanbag is under the table and the other chairs showed no obvious proof of dog use.

Yesterday, though, there was proof positive:


lorimn95