3/24/14

Zigzag, Not Zumba

Okay, so it was a busy day today...I'll give it that. I did all the laundry, and I cleaned up the downstairs. And I did some work I needed to do at the computer. Then, I was all set to go to Zumba Gold. I even put on my slightly too tight cropped-off workout pants. I even made myself a sandwich for lunch. Then, I still had about 45 minutes before I needed to go, but I made the colossal mistake of spending that time sewing. And I blame my thread.

I was working my way zigzagging through all the pieces of the Chili Rounder.


And my danged thread kept breaking, and it was frustrating the heck out of me. I kept trying different things...I changed the needle, I unspooled a bunch of thread thinking I might be at a weak spot, rethreaded needle and bobbin, finally I put the spool on a different spindle on the sewing machine, and that seemed to fix it. But during all of this, it was time to leave, and I simply could not walk away from it. It would have been like surrendering to the thread, and I Could. Not. Do. It. I know you understand. I'll go on Wednesday when I don't have so many other things going on.

In any case, I finished all the top-stitching on the Chili Rounder. I'm really happy with how this turned out. It was so much fun, I might turn around right away and make another one.


I'm going to put this aside now, but only because I want to wait for some polyester batting. Usually, I use cotton exclusively, but I want something that won't shrink when its washed. It's a table topper, and so it needs to be washable.

Until that comes, I'll work on some of the other things on my to-do list, and with a week left in the month, there isn't much time to spare. I'm going to start by catching up on the Rainbow Scrap challenge. Recall that I'm making the Dream Machines pattern, by Barbara Talbert.



I am making one block per month, and so I'll have twelve blocks when I'm finished. I made the blue block in January, 



but then I fell behind. That's okay. I've was doing this challenge two months at a time last year, and it worked out pretty well. So, now I need to make the pink block and the teal block. I don't know if my teals are right, but that's as good as it's going to get. These are the fabrics I pulled today. The top ones are for the body of the machine. The middle ones are for the hand wheel, and the bottom is for the thread.


And I put the birdcam out early this morning and ended up with over 3,000 pictures. There were a couple of hundred good ones, at least. Here are the best ones. This first one is a black-capped chickadee.


And look who's back! The Goldfinches made an appearance today. They are just developing their summer coloring because they will be bright yellow eventually.




And the other stars of the show were the Purple finches today. I got lots of good pictures of them, both male and female.





I think this might actually be a House finch here. 


He's looking wary at the cat bird behind him.


And that's it from me. Tomorrow is a swimming day, and I need to go to the grocery store. Hopefully, I'll get some time to sew. We're due for more rain tomorrow, so things should be a little more mellow. When the sun shines, we are busy. Sometimes a little rain is a good thing.

10 comments:

Brown Family said...

It is so frustrating to have problems when you want to finish! I have been paper piecing and pulling paper off.

Dasha said...

The birdcam photos are stunning Barbara. I really enjoy it when you post those.

Vroomans' Quilts said...

I always use a thread stand. Hope your day goes better today. Love seeing the birds.

Kate said...

The Chili Rounder came out beautifully. Sorry you had thread problems. That's one of the reasons I'm not big on applique, I've had thread problems every time I've tried to make a piece, no matter what machine I've used.

Love your birdie pictures. I'd say we've not see our new arrivals, but we haven't been home long enough to just sit and watch them.

gpc said...

I see that you've come around to my exercise program of avoidance, which is not a good thing. Of course, when I go off the rails, I don't even get any sewing done so you are still an over achiever in my book! Love the peppers and the birds. :)

Dana Gaffney said...

I can't start sewing if I know I have to be somewhere, it's all over at that point, I either lose track of time or just don't want to stop and walk away.

Stray Stitches (Linda G) said...

Your chili table topper is so California - lol! Love the sewing machine you created. Wonderful photos of the birds at your feeder. Sure wish you could send some of that rain down this way.

Dogwood Lane Rambles said...

I certainly understand not being able to surrender to the thread! The chili peppers are looking pretty darn tasty. I don't know if I should thank you for reminding me about the RSC as I have absolutely no time to make my block this month and I'm not happy with the block I chose to do anyway and feel like I need to start over so... procrastination seems like the best course here.

Celtic Thistle said...

Shame you ended up missing your Zumba, we haven't had any classes this week as the Hall is being used for the local AmDram production and I have really missed it.

Loving the bird photos! My husband was given a bird spotters book for his birthday and we discovered one of our visitors today was a bullfinch :)

quiltzyx said...

Grrrrr! I hate it when the thread misbehaves! The last one for me, I was using some Coats & Clarks & had a small keeper on my spindle instead of the larger one. The thread caught on that little 'nick' in the spool where you put it so it doesn't unspool in storage (yes, an old spool!). Stopped me in my tracks! I had to unthread the machine & put the spool on 'upside down' so it wouldn't catch again. But, I was eventually successful, just as you were. Yay us.

Very nice shots from the bird cam. I didn't know that purple finches were really red. You are always teaching me new stuff! Thanks!