Utility Sewing

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Yesterday and this morning, I decided to knock off some of the more boring sewing for the month. It's actually not that bad. It's less boring if I'm kind of in the mood for it. After spending nearly all day quilting yesterday, I was ready for some mindless activity.

The hanging sleeve is attached to the Blooming Sunflower quilt now.

And the label is finished too. Whenever I do blanket stitch by hand, my brain generally goes AWOL at some point during the process. I was going along fine until I turned a corner and then suddenly, I couldn't figure out where to put my needle next. Thank goodness for those little "initial beads" the guild provided for our "Initially Yours" challenge. I sewed mine where my stitching got funky. They covered a multitude of sins.

It seemed like that took forever, but with this quilt going into a show, I wanted that label firmly attached. And now this quilt is all ready for the Stitches in Bloom quilt show next month.

When I talked about this show a few days ago, I neglected to mention that I'd signed up for another two-day workshop. Last year I stayed at the Oregon Garden Resort for a three-day workshop, and it was very enjoyable. I kind of like these overnighters where room and food are included. There were three workshops to choose from, and neither of the quilting workshops appealed to me particularly. Then, they added a wool felting workshop (two actually, and I'm attending both days)

by Heidi Leugers. The first day she'll be teaching "2-D Embellishment and Basic Three-dimensional Needle Felting". On the second day she'll be teaching "Sculpting and Needle Felting Three-Dimensional Figures". Here's a link to the workshop description. Here's a link to her gallery where you can see some of the cute stuff she's made. I've never done anything like this, and so it'll be fun to learn something new.

Also this morning, I made the label for the Peppermint Star table runner.

As I said in an earlier post, I'm labeling all of my projects from now until next summer because I'm participating in a guild UFO challenge. A quilt isn't considered "finished" until it has a label. For now, I'm just fusing the ones that aren't leaving my home for any reason. I may decide to stitch around them eventually, but for now I'll leave them as is. 

A few of you asked about Miss Gracie. She's been spending these cold days snuggled up on the bed. She doesn't often make the blog because she's an old lady and spends most of her time sleeping. She probably has a birthday right about now. She was about six months old when we got her in July of 2002, and so I figure she was born sometime in November or December of 2001. That would make her about 13 years old. Here's a picture of her with her brother George in their younger years right after we brought them home. These two were thick as thieves when we got them. 

Obviously, sleeping is one of her favorite pastimes. She's none to happy with me when I start flashing the camera in her face, but I know the Friends of Gracie have been missing her.

She was happy to oblige her many fans this morning, but more often than not, she's just as happy to stay in the background. 

Besides, she has to keep an eye on that Smitty...even when she's sleeping. He'll lie in wait for her, and that makes her soooooooooooooo mad!!

As for that bad cat, Smitty, just look at that angelic face.

"Moi? Lie in wait? Would I do that?"

Today is going to be a kitchen day. I'm making white chocolate peppermint fudge from a recipe I saw online. Yum...although I haven't tried it yet. I'm hoping for the yum. Also, I'm making turkey stock, and for dinner I'm using up my leftover mashed potatoes to make Cottage Pies...one of Mike's favorites. If there's time left over after all of that, I'll probably go back to my quilting.

At some point before the end of the week, I have to go to my bank branch and get a new debit card. There was fraudulent use of my debit card yesterday in Chicago...three times before we noticed it. Bummer. It's the second time this year my debit card has been compromised. The first time I'd used it at a quilt show and the vendors were using wireless devices to capture the information. That cured me of wireless transactions at those kinds of events. Now, it's cash and carry for me. This time...who knows? I generally only use the card for buying groceries, and I'm not aware of any hacking events at my local supermarket. Maybe they just haven't figured it out yet. Anyway...it means a drive into town, and that makes me grouchy. In fact, the whole thing makes me grouchy.

White chocolate peppermint fudge ought to improve my mood. Wouldn't it improve yours?