Miscellaneous Musings

Today I have a day at home...alone...and I'm luxuriating in it. That isn't to say that I don't love having my husband around, but it's the first day I've had to myself in more than a week, and so I'm going to be lazy and enjoy it.

Just before I came upstairs to write this blog post, I looked out the living room window to see this visitor just outside.

I imagine she was browsing her personal farmer's market looking for tulips. She'll have to come back in a few weeks and enjoy her feast then. For as long as we've lived here, I never tire of seeing the deer...even if they did destroy my rose garden...and even if they do eat the tulips down to the ground. I tried to defeat the deer by planting the tulip bulbs in whiskey barrels. That worked pretty well until the squirrels discovered them. They dug up every single bulb and had their own little buffet. There are a few tulips left scattered around that no one has eaten yet, but I imagine they'll disappear eventually too.

Yesterday morning, I had some time to sew, and then I had a little bit of time when I got home from PT. Before I go on, I'll just report that yesterday's session was my last in PT. I've been going since the beginning of October, so four months. It has helped quite a bit. My knee will never be pain free, but it's so much better now than it was at the end of summer. I can still go back if it flares up again, but I'm hoping that won't happen. I'll see the doctor on Thursday, and he can give me his final blessing. There are still a few things I wish were a little more improved, but I think PT has done all it can for me at this point. Maybe the doctor will feel another cortisone injection might get me over the top. I really don't know, but I'd be up for that if he suggested it.

So to get back to my sewing. I was working on the Outback Sunset table runner I started.

Yesterday, I made the strip sets:

Then I cut them into triangles using the 45° angle on my ruler. Depending on which way I was cutting, the strips of fabric were reversed in half of them.

Then I started sewing them together with the black and white stripes, and I sewed the center strips together.

Then I started sewing the blocks together. There are three of these, and two with the fabrics in reverse order. I was able to finish two of these before I had to quit for the day. 

I'll finish the rest of the blocks today, and then, depending on the time, I might finish the whole top or decide to move onto the next thing on January's to-do list. So that's today's sewing agenda. If I'm feeling really charitable, I might fit in some housework, but that's a big "If".

This morning I was thrilled to receive these pictures from my bloggy friend Sue L. One of her friends took them at the Road to California quilt show. This quilt was entered in Bird Brain Designs' Redwork Challenge. Since I was attending a show here in Oregon, I wasn't able to see my quilt in California. I would very much appreciate it if someone would send me a link with a tutorial that explains how to be in two places at the same time. I tried searching Google, but only came up with links to a lot of stuff about the laws of physics. Anyway...here's my quilt:

And here's the tag:

It's the next best thing to being there, so thanks, Sue...and please thank your friend who took these photos. 

Then, I was scrolling through my Newsfeed on Facebook this morning when I came across this!

I won! Along with three others, I won a $50 gift certificate to the Bird Brain Designs website for this. Holy Spit! The mind reels with possibilities. I LOVE their stuff! What a great way to start the day! And I just want to say here that I hope it doesn't seem like shameless self-promotion or boastful when I show stuff like this because, honestly, I am flabbergasted when a quilt I've made receives any sort of recognition. I just told someone this morning that I'm always expecting to see every mistake--and there are many!--circled with red ink like my math tests from back in high school. So, anyway, I figure we're all friends here. If you can't celebrate your little triumphs with friends, then who can you share them with?

So moving on, I have this "We Are the World" quilt on my calendar to be sewn together in the next couple of months, and I've been thinking about what fabric to use for the back.

I was wishing I could find some sort of paper dolls fabric somewhere, but I didn't like anything I saw. The closest I came was this new fabric called Handmaids from Quilting Treasures:

It comes in different colors, but only off-white...not white, which is what I wanted. Also, for my purposes, I didn't like that red postal stamp. What's up with that?

Anyway...I searched, and searched, and searched, and finally settled on these rainbow polka dots. They're fine, but I still wish I could have found what I was looking for. Can't designers read my mind? I mean, really.

Finally, I was taking some images off my phone and remembered these from Monday when I was on my way to Salem to visit the fabric store. I was stopped at several red lights following this car, which gave me plenty of opportunities to take this photo:

I briefly considered getting out my car, knocking on the window, and introducing myself as her new best friend, but then the light changed. Shoot. Oh well. A missed opportunity. Oh, and be sure to notice the license plate frame.

And then, right on the heels of this car's rear end, I walked past a jewelry store on my way to the fabric store and saw this:

Be still my beating heart! I went inside to see how much it was. The fact that the price wasn't posted should have been a clue, but I was dismayed to find it was about ten times out of my price range. Oh well. I texted a picture to Mike as a heavy-handed hint, but I'm not sure the message was received. I probably should have included the GPS coordinates, but I don't know how to do that.

So that's about it for me. Time to go luxuriate in my sewing room. I hope you have a lovely day.