Grandmother Is . . .

Aaron spent much of the weekend with me and enjoyed one of his favorite e-books, an interactive Little Red Riding Hood, repeating again and again his favorite phrase, "Grandmother was sick as a dog."  (What is it with kids, that new phrases tickle their fancy and they repeat them again and again?)

And the next thing I knew, Aaron had croup and then Grandmother was sick as a dog.  And now Steph is sick as a dog.  And surely it's just a matter of time until Nora has croup as well.  And we're supposed to be leaving for Asheville in the morning.

I know that adults don't usually get croup so maybe Steph and I have unrelated viruses.  And Nora is kind of out of the bad croup age, so she may escape and everyone will feel better and my blue car will be going down the highway tomorrow.

I dragged myself over to the dealership yesterday for an oil change but just felt too rough to pick things up inside and dust a little bit.  The all-weather mats, thank goodness for them, are muddy because when it thaws a little there is still mud from the construction last fall.  And there were crumbs all over the back seat, and I had to ask them to check out the back seat belts because after the recall work I could barely buckle Aaron's.  I was afraid they might say, "Of course you can't buckle it, it's filled up with crumbs."

That didn't happen, though, and the dealership washes the car when it's in so at least it's lovely on the outside.  And I've learned that it's kind of futile to clean out the inside BEFORE a car trip with kids.  Maybe the dealership has seen worse, I don't know.  Aren't Subaru's supposed to look a little rugged?   

Daffodils at Church

I was trying to get the snowflakes in the picture with the daffodils but it wasn't to be.  But not because there weren't snowflakes.

This morning I'm taking pass two of the class sample I'm working on.  Yesterday I didn't look closely enough at the directions and completely messed it up.  Oh, well, I always tell my students that I make the mistakes so they won't have to.  And, I can rescue the messed-up piece, it will look just fine, I just can't use it as a sample.

There was also a second mess-up that really worked ok.  I didn't put on the embroidery foot, accidentally left on the free motion foot.  But, I guess that a floating foot is a floating foot because it worked just fine.  Tension was awesome.  Nevertheless, I have on the embroidery foot this morning, I'm going to do everything right today.

I learned awhile ago that Aaron is sick this morning, fever and cough, and Mike will be dropping him off here on his way to work.  Carrye and I were going to play with her Janome this afternoon, but we'll have to do that another day.

Aaron's Quilt

Aaron wanted to quilt this morning (he always does.)  His masterpiece:  A Zebra Behind a Fence.

Dragonfly and Micro Stippling

Finally, after a couple of days at work, several getting the kids to school, some early-morning church volunteering, and finishing some sewing jobs, I'm quilting in my pajamas this morning.  I've been wanting to free motion this little dragonfly from my Craftsy Beyond Machine Quilting class. 

He has a few little bobbles, for example the second-to-the-last circle isn't as small as it should be.  One thing I'm learning, though, is that in free motion to just let it go, not try to rip out stithces unless something is REALLY awful, and in fact, from a little distance away, he looks fine.  The little guy is 4" high from antenae tip to bottom, with micro-stippling all around.

And now for a kid story:  Yesterday I picked up the kids after school and Nora was doing her homework in the car.  For math addition and subtraction, she tends to count on her fingers.  Aaron watched her, and when she got to some larger numbers he said, "Nora, do you want me to hold up my fingers so you'll have twenty fingers instead of ten?"  Is that not the sweetest offer from a little guy who sometimes likes to pick on his sister?

He tends to remember the math facts instead of counting, but yesterday she gave him a problem he didn't know and all was quiet in the back seat and I knew he was counting too.  Tonight Aaron is coming to spend the night while Nora and her mom go to a wedding shower.  He gets so happy when he can be a pretend only child for a few hours. 

Flat Sewing

I almost never do any flat sewing, but I'm making four pairs of custom curtains for a grandmother's nursery.  They had to be pink, they had to have butterflies, and they had to have lots of lace.  She's pretty excited about her two new grandgirls. 

Growing a Baby Quilt

There is a very full tub of scraps in my studio because whenever I have a left-over piece of fabric of anything more than 2" or so it goes into the tub.  And I sew a lot.

So I was happy to find a tutorial here for a Crazy Square Baby Quilt from Jennifer at Two Butterflies that looked good for our baby quilt group.  Basically it recommends cutting a 5" square, putting a scrap on a corner, right sides together, sewing, trimming, flipping the scrap back and squaring it off.  Then doing the same thing at the opposite corner.  I loved it because the scraps aren't put together with any kind of measuring so every block ends up just a little different than the others.  It ends up looking like what was on my design wall, below.     

 

But then I saw Andrea Johnson's tutorial here for what she calls a Modern Scrappy Baby Quilt.  Same blocks, just arranged in a different way, and I like hers even better.  And she's a big part of the Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild, too.  My design wall now looks like what's below. 

 

Of course if you don't like the appearance of the casual designs, you could easily be more precise and actually measure or use an AccuQuilt like Andrea did.  And if you don't like the scrappy look they would be stunning in just two colors.  As a bonus, the blocks go together really fast.  

But back to that tub.  My quilt top is about 1/4 finished, and I haven't even made a DENT in that tub.  I was looking forward to seeing some fabrics I haven't seen for awhile, but that's not going to happen.  I hope we find some more scrappy designs for our baby quilts. 

Circles

The last Saturday I was at work, my supervisor gave me the new Husqvarna Viking Circular Attachment to borrow and play with.  Not a chore for me, because I love tools.  Yesterday I realized that tomorrow is a work day for me and the tool was still in the box.

Of course I had to figure out some quilting applications.  I used it to sew circles for quilting but also for applique.  Very cool, just stitch a circle with the tool, put fabric on top of the circle, and stitch around the circle again.  Trim outside the circle, close to the stitching.  Then choose an applique stitch and stitch around one more time.

Then, because this is my year to learn free motion, I quilted the whole thing, really quilted it, and cut it to 16" x 16."  Maybe, just maybe, it will fit in with one of the CQAFA word challenges and I'll have something already made in the right size. 

Or, maybe, after its time at work, I will put it in the CQAFA Nature Center Show, where we are to display something authentic to our style.  I also need a few new pieces to display at church for three months, starting in July.  For sure, I'm going to put a hanging sleeve on the back when I bind it.

I really like this, and I especially like the Sulky varigated rayon that was in my stash.  (Not a blendable.)  I've learned to be careful and not use it for most embroidery applications because it ends up with stripes - yikes! - but for the little McTavishing free motion the color changes add lots of dimension.