Not a crafty day

I spent the day with the Karate Kid at a tournament today - his first after a disastrous attempt a few years ago. This was at least better organized.

Some background: My middle kid, 11, got his black belt a week ago. This is him after his belt test with the school's owner/director, Mr. Derek. (If anyone is looking for an outstanding program in the upper Montgomery County/lower Frederick County area, Strive Martial Arts in Damascus, MD or Gaithersburg, MD is outstanding.)


So today, he did the forms competition in the tournament. Because of some weird way AAU calculates age, he was in the 12-to-something group even though he's 11. And not big for his age. AND all of the black belts compete against each other, so the next least experienced kid had two chevrons - almost a second degree black belt. The other kids were at least second degree black belts.


He actually did fairly well - but came in last place in his group. Which upset him greatly. I talked him down some, another kid's mom talked him down some more, and Mr. Derek told him what he needed to work on most. There's another tournament coming up in a couple of weeks - hopefully that will go better, or at least he's do better compared to his score this time.

Free Motion Quilting

I've been working on FMQ on the 9-patch-a-day quilt. Starting out doing spirals in the 9-patches, freehand. They're far from perfect, but they're getting DONE. I'm going to do feathers in the sashing and stick a fork in it.

I think this photo is a little washed out, but the quilting shows up better than I expected.

Past weekend's Sit-n-Sew

Our guild had a sit-n-sew last Sunday. Heaven. A whole day to sew, have lunch with friends, just chill with no distractions. I got surprisingly little done!

This is my space:


I got my next set of six-a-month blocks done:


The 9-patch quilt got sandwiched and pinned - gotta love big floor spaces! I'd planned on doing some quilting - but not only did I forget the free motion foot for the Brother, I also forgot the power cord and the foot pedal! What a goofball I can be sometimes.

I also put together a few pinwheel blocks. No idea what I'll do with them, but they're done.

Musicals

I've been home sick today, with occasional peeks at work e-mail.

This morning and through early afternoon, it was pretty much non-stop CSI.

But for the past hour or so I've been watching Oklahoma! What a treat. The old musicals don't seem to show up on TV as often as they did when I was growing up. The Lovely Daughter is in a production of South Pacific at her high school, so when that was on a few weeks ago we watched it. It was the modern version, though :( Much as I like Harry Connick, Jr., it just wasn't right. It doesn't help that I'm not a huge fan of Glenn Close either.

I think I will finally have to break down and order a DVD of The Music Man - it's probably my favorite of all.

Cosmetically challenged

That's how my poor little Featherweight was referred to today in my Featherweight class. It was a basic class in cleaning, oiling, etc., and really wasn't anything more than I'd already figured out from the manual. It was helpful to know that there wasn't anything else I needed to know, though, know what I mean? The instructor also said I might need some rewiring in a year or so, but I'm OK for now.

It was, however, annoying that they delayed the class for an hour to hold a makeup class for something else, and the shop didn't bother to let anyone know.

Oh, and the stupid car polish we were supposed to bring spilled all over one of my bags. And it didn't even work on my machine!

I still have to finish up the challenge quilt tonight. It's a big hot mess, but I WILL get the damn thing finished.

Thank you, Shellie!

A while back Shellie from Shell Creations was having a birthday giveaway. I've linked directly to her post because I didn't manage to get a picture of my lovely prize before it went to live on my desk at work! I won the calendar - someway, somehow I didn't have a desktop quilting calendar yet this year, and I'm *so* glad I was the lucky one this time - I get to look at a new quilt top or block every day!

Next six done!

Three snowballs and three nine-patches:

Results of Snow Dying

The t-shirts, at least most of them, starting with TMOTH's:


Mine:


Mine, #2:


And the Small Man wearing his:


The Fabric:

It's melting!

Photos of the snow dye in progress. They're all in the washer now.




Vomit Girl is feeling much better:


On the quilty front, does something look a bit, oh, OFF here?


Yes. The fish are on TOP of the lily pads. Sigh.
A few minutes ripping and re-sewing later, and the top is done:


Now to finish cleaning off the dining room table so I can sandwich and baste it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Snow dyeing - the major event

I didn't take any photos of the kids outside squirting dye on the buckets. Too busy refilling the bottles we used up. And taking care of the daughter that was throwing up. Yay.

The bins are now thawing in my bathroom. Everybody got a t-shirt and a piece of fabric, soaked and left out to freeze overnight. We packed the snow on this morning and squirted away. TMOTH decided to try it with a red t-shirt we had hanging about the house - we'll see how that works :)

Bathtub full of the experiment:


Small Man's effort on top - he had to use ALL the colors:


This is the t-shirt from yesterday - pretty cool!

Snow dyeing - the beginning

So, all the beautiful photos of snow dyes have turned my head.

I didn't fall all the way - still no "official" dyes on the shelf, just a tie-dye kit from the craft store.

AND, since the other members of my family aren't particularly into fabric, I bought t-shirts as well as 2 yards of 90" bleached muslin, which I cut into 5 pieces. (A cheap experiment. The t-shirts were on sale for $2 each, and the muslin was half price. ) Tonight I soaked them in the soda ash solution and set most of them outside to freeze. Separate bucket or bin for each person; one piece of material in with each t-shirt.

One t-shirt (for me), I couldn't wait:




Yes, that is my toilet. And no, that brown isn't part of the dye, it's some discoloration on the plastic bucket. This is turquoise and green and a little bit of yellow - really really realllllyy old dyes left over from a long-ago tie-dye project. If it doesn't work, I'll just re-soak it in the soda ash and try it again.

Finally, a post with pictures of something other than snow

I did get the left side panel of the diamond challenge quilt finished:


What's that? You don't see any diamonds? Well, no. They'll be on the right side of that panel.
It's kind of wonky in the picture, but it is a rectangle; the lily pad leaves are at the upper left, the flower on the lower left. There's a big open space in the lower right side that I plan to quilt in concentric circles for raindrops.

And, of course, there's still the snow. This was during the height of the blizzard; you can see the snow in the air.


You can see how tall the big shoveled piles are; Small Man is the yardstick here.


And the icicles.

And...it's snowing again

It's a small victory, but we finished the shoveling from the first snow about 2:30 this afternoon, before the next storm started.

Nothing like slave labor to help with the job:


The falling snow isn't all that clear here, but you CAN see the grill tucked under the scaffold, ready in case we lose power again.


My arms hurt just thinking about the next round.

I do so hate the snow

Yes, it's pretty. And pretty unpleasant as well.

We woke up at ~4 am to no power and a big cedar limb in front of the back door (our back door is our main entrance door). Back to bed, eventually back to sleep, and up at 7 to fight the snow dragon.

Doesn't this downed tree covered in snow look like a snow dragon?


By breaking off some of the smaller limbs and using the lopper on some of the bigger ones (have I mentioned lately how much I love Fiskars in all of its many manifestations), we (that is, TMOTH) were able to throw the trunk off to the side. This would be repeated many times today, and a few more times tomorrow.

The yard, again:

I don't know if you can tell how MUCH more snow there is on it than any of the previous times.

The path out to shovel land. That big lump of snow in the middle of the picture is our Accord.


The roof of our house. The bare spots are where the snow periodically WHOMMPs off the house.


Shoveling. This is TMOTH shoveling; I did my fair share as well.


There will be more shoveling tomorrow. Ick.

LOTS of snow on the way

I know, two feet is nothing to you upper Midwest girls, but the mid-Atlantic grinds to a complete halt with an INCH of snow. And we're supposed to get a lot more than that. AND 30 mph winds.

This is what it looked like this afternoon:


It's sticking, even to the sides of the trees:


Kona is happy, she loves the snow:


Snow on a bramble next to the compost bin:


The only good thing is that The Lovely Daughter's art class and the birthday party that Small Man were supposed to go to tomorrow are both cancelled. So I can sew. If we still have power.

Keep your fingers crossed that we don't lose electricity! The guild challenge quilt (Plan B) is coming along nicely.

More snow last night :(

I am so done with winter.

This is what our yard looked like this morning:


The lilacs held the snow well - but I prefer them in purple:


I think this is our magnolia:


The box elders:


Looking up into the tree in the center of the ovoid driveway (it's a flowering cherry or something):


The evergreens hold LOTS of snow:


Deer tracks in the snow:


Playing in the snow worked for a little while for the younger set:


Of course, it all melted off the branches by noon:


And now, for something completely different: the Small Man turned 5 yesterday!

Great giveaway

Over at the Creative Place.

Oh, and if you enter? Go for the paper. That fabric stash has my name on it :)

Plan B for the guild challenge

The diamonds quilt is too long for the challenge. Despite suggestions from TMOTH, I'm not cutting it off or taking off the last row of goldenrod.

I did some rooting around in my stash and came up with a biggish panel of solid black (I think it's linen), a strip of satin brocade with goldfish, some solid burgundy cotton brocade and solid tan satin. I'm going to applique some water lily leaves and one white bloom on the black part, and use the burgundy and tan in a diamond pattern down one side. It'll be bold, that's for sure!

Photos soon, I hope.