Whatever, Whatever, I Do What I Want

That's not really my attitude. I hear you laughing. No really, I do have some restraint. But the block today on my calendar was a Swamp Angel, which I have done already. No sense being redundant. So today I set together my Sally Sweet quilt top. Here it is! Tada!

I hit a couple thrift stores today and got some yummy sweaters to recycle. A silk, an Ecuadoran wool, some angora, and others. And, my daughter and I walked Walmart. I was doing that last year but gave it up over the holidays... too crowded. If one walks every aisle of our Walmart, it is about 3 miles, and takes us almost an hour. Physical fitness, here I come.

I had a kid throwing up for about half the day today. He managed to take a bowl to bed with him, in my room, since it is the closest bed in the house to a bathroom. The bowl was in case he didn't make it. He used the bowl. Then promptly spilled it on Richard's Chocolate quilt that I made him for his 60th birthday. So today I got to wash a quilt too! Oh and fold 3 other loads of laundry.

I made a Bacon Mushroom Quiche for supper, with some sauteed onions and chopped fresh tomatoes in it. And then my kids sat down to eat and put KETCHUP on it. Even the kid who was throwing up just 8 hours earlier. Whaaaaa? Man, why do I bother to cook? Why not just buy ketchup and bread and let them make loathesome ketchup sandwiches?

Other than this, I got nothing done today except make my husband happy. Hey, I made chocolate chip cookies for him to come home to. What were YOU thinking?

On My Knees Again, and, A Little Pet Yarn

Ok yesterday we went to the new Chinese Buffet here in town. They had TONS of food, most of which wasn't all that Chinese. Now I am THE ONE. Who always gets the pepper butt, the bone in the stew, the bay leaf in the soup, the hair in the sandwich. Even the tooth in the sweet potatoes (that is a WHOLE other story). So when they brought the PILE of fortune cookies (there were 11 of us at table), I reached in and got one. The Burnt and Broken one. And, though still sealed, it didn't even have a fortune in it! What does that mean?

Even though their cookie didn't have a fortune, apparently their food had TONS of MSG in it, because I spent most of the rest of the day in an MSG coma. No really. When I eat MSG, I must... sleep... it... off.......

I slept 4 hours. Then I still felt like I had strychnine poisoning in my muscles, and my head was stuffed with cotton wadding. And the headache, which very closely resembled the kidney stone headache I had just had for 2 days. Along about 7 PM I took an antihistamine, a couple non-aspirin (about an hour after some real aspirin), and a shower hot enough to make my skin red. Then I felt almost human again.

I spent part of Friday, and part of Saturday re-plying a silk yarn that a person had special ordered from me. I had quoted a price for it, and spent WAY too much time having to ply that yarn. Then yesterday I dyed it and went to re-skein it, and got it tangled. Spent about another 2 hours untangling that yarn. I hope she LOVES it and buys it IMMEDIATELY. I threw the rest of that sweater in the trash.

Yesterday wasn't a block day on the calendar, but I made one anyway, because I only needed ONE to finish my Sally Sweet quilt. Somewhere above here is the block. Today wasn't a block day either, because it is the intro pic of the next quilt. So today I cut my sashings for Sally. In this terrible picture, the side-to-side sashings look like they are too short, but that is only becauce the blocks are not all sewn together yet. They will be fine, trust me. And this is the quilt in it's entirety. Now! On to something else!

I put up several yarns today. One is called 8th Grade Romance because the colors reminded me of being in 8th grade, writing the latest heartthrob's name over and over on a notebook in red, pink, and purple (fruit-scented) markers. LoL!

I also made a little pet yarn. I had these bits and balls of fiber from recycling a charcoal wool sweater, and wondered if they could be put to use after putting them through the drum carder. What I found out was, they got studk between the tines of the carder. So I thought I should put something else through the carder, to see if the wool bits would stick to it. I looked around and my eyes lit on that box of unprocessed Llama fur.

So I washed (several times) and dried the fur, picked it, carded it... which didn't get MOST of the wool bits out of the carder. I spun it up into this little funky yarn that reminds me of Ermine fur (white with little dark bits) or maybe Dalmation Puppies. It is incredibly soft! To feel that fur in the raw, I would never have thought it was this soft, but you could just about roll around naked in this stuff. Not mine, get your own. The skein is only 20 yards of about worsted weight, so it would only make cuffs around mittens or a hat, but it is so cute. Hope someone likes it enough to buy it.

Someone in my house (but of course NO one in my house, LoL) put a plastic can of thawed, concentrated White Grape Peach juice either on top of, or crooked in, the refrigerator. Who are these people? Did I actually teach anyone in my household to put juice away like that? Am I crazy?

So tonight after picking Richard up from work, I went to get something out of the fridge, and the can crashed to the floor. The top popped off, spewing the stickiest GUCK all over the floor, the inside of, and UNDER the fridge. I mopped and mopped and mopped on my hands and knees, with several changes of soapy water, all the while remarking what a bad housekeeper I am.

It occurred to me that in my lifetime I have spent WAY too much time on my knees, doing things that I didn't really want to do or cleaning messes I didn't want to clean or just doing, you know, whatever since I happened to be there. And I had the thought, that perhaps if I spent more time on my knees talking to The Guy who holds all these events in His hands, I might not have to spend as much time in the muck.

But then again, maybe not. This is my life, after all. And, my floor is still sticky.

My LIttle Kitty

Alright! Today I got the Little Kitty brand "Kitten" model drum carder that I just ordered on Monday. Wow, that was FAST! and I LOVE it!! It is oak construction, with an 8.5" wide drum that is 8" across. Just for fun I took a little each of 3 fibers I started to spin together a while back: a green Merino, a yellow/orange/slightly red Merino, and some red wool that had only been carded once. Ran them through once, and again. Here is the batt laid out flat...

and here is another view, folded in half lengthwise and rolled up. I think I will like spinning from the batt better than what I was doing, just pulling a little bit off each roving at a time. The carder works very easily. I watched some videos on youtube the last day or so, and so taking to doing the carding was also easy.


Today's block was an hourglass... also known as an X. Tomorrow's block is a string of X blocks put end to end, as a border or something for the Stupid Penguin Quilt. So what I did, was do my own thing again today, but tomorrow I am going to do 4 little bitty X blocks like the calendar shows, and put them together for my block of the day. Here is what I came up with today though, and I think it ROCKS. LOL.


Richie was off today, and worked on our bathroom a little. And I got pics of the Corriedale fleece I just got, and the Llama fur I got last November. The Corriedale fleece is 4 garbage bags full. Altogether about 40 pounds. Now you see why I "needed" a drum carder! Right now it is a dark-beige to pale-caramel color, so I think when processed it will be white.

The Llama is a silvery color, with a lot of dry hay in it. I actually hadn't opened the box since I got it in November, because it was compacted in the box and I knew I would never get it all back in! But curiosity got the best of me! I think it will clean up really nice. Can't wait to wash these and see what comes of them!

Tomorrow at 2 Des and Tony are going to look at a house, potentially to buy it. I think I will ride along. We've bought several houses (some of which were The Money Pit), so at least I know some pitfalls to look for that they might not think of.

Will let you know how it goes!

Who Wants A Penguin Block?

Today's block was a stupid appliqued penguin. Who needs that? But in keeping with the spirit of the block (if not the letter), I made an appliqued Snowball block of Sally Sweet, Transvestite Extraordinaire. LoL. Here is my drawing of the prototype, alongside the block in its finished state.

I started unraveling a 100% silk sweater today, for a special order. I don't know if the lady will like this yarn though. It is very strandy, like 5-6 strands of silk thread just running along together. Because of that, I have run into a snag that I can't seem to get untangled, so I quit for the day on it. I am probably going to have to try to ply it before I hand dye it. Another strike against efficiency, LoL.

I got a new roving yesterday. When it arrived it was blue, green, and brown. I have overdyed almost all the green areas with black, and I think this yarn is Joe Morelli. It has blue for the jeans he perpetually wears, black for his hair, T shirt, and attitude, and brown for his sullied reputation. This is both the top and bottom of the braid. I am not sure what this will be when spun, but I am thinking it has to be a sock yarn. YUM!

No weirdness for today. We stayed home, LoL.

Artemas is baking Pineapple Upside Down muffins. I told him each step and now he has them in the oven and they smell wonderful. Tomorrow will be breakfast-to-die-for!

Here is the recipe:
Preheat oven to 400F. Grease a dozen standard-size muffin cups (or use baking spray)
"Bottom" topping:
12-oz. can crushed pineapple
Dark Brown sugar
Maraschino Cherries, if you like
Using an 12-oz can of crushed pineapple, put an equal amount of pineapple and juice in the bottom of each muffin cup. Add about a Teaspoon (maybe a little more) of dark brown sugar to each cup with the pineapple. And if you like, put a maraschino cherry in each cup. Set aside.
Muffins:
1 Cup Sour Cream (lowfat ok) or applesauce
1/3 Cup Butter
2 Eggs
3/4 Cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
Beat until thoroughly blended. Then add:
1 cup Flour (I use unbleached. If you use self-rising, eliminate the following ingredients)
1 Tablespoon Baking powder
1 teaspoon Baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Stir the dry ingredients in. Then add another 3/4 cup flour, barely stirring into dough.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, on top of pineapple. Bake for 12-14 minutes. Turn muffins out onto cooling rack while hot. Sometimes it helps if you loosen the muffins around the edge with a knife. Enjoy!

Finally, I Have a Purpose

The kids and I chucked folding laundry yesterday and went to Des' house. I didn't have to pick Richie up until 11 PM so we had the evening free. We had some yummy Greek Salad I made, and Chili she made. I spun some more of the Caramel Raspberry Cheesecake roving into yarn and made my quilt block of the day. Please don't look at it too closely, because it is a sad and sorry little block. Like Stephanie Plum, I am going to say, "It wasn't my fault!"

I have a lot of black and white, 5" charms, so I am making this little series of blocks from them. for this block, I needed ONE 5" charm of white, cut into 4 equal pieces... and TWO black charms, cut into a 3" square and 5 little squares. I went to cut the white charm and the ruler slid... next thing I know I had cut it into 4 unrecognizable shapes. So I thought, I have one more with me, I will just cut it. Well guess what? The lady who cut those charms to send them in for the swap, cut them short on one edge by almost 1/4". So out of 2, 5" charms, I couldn't even get 4 little 2.5" squares. I had to end up piecing 2 of them.

That wasn't enough trouble. I cut the pieces for the center, little 9-patch block. I made this perfect little 3.5" 9-patch. Then I realized that for this block, I needed a 2.5" 9-patch. Head slap! How does one make a 2" finished square divided into 3 parts each direction? I don't even want to do the math on that one. So I just lay the thing down and whacked 1/2" off each edge, making my 9-patch somewhat wonky. Then I put it all together and mismatched one triangle in the corner.

While I was trying to finish the block, my kids go, "Mom, do you realize we should have left to get Dad 10 minutes ago?" So this is what I get.

I am in a Black and White challenge, where we can add ONE other color. That is what I had in mind for these little blocks. But my daughter has also opened a Bumbling Bounty Hunters Miniature Quilt Challenge. The books this is based on have a character called Sally Sweet, who is an immensely tall and hairy Italian guy who dresses in drag for his night club act, swears like a sailor, and drives a school bus for his day job. So Finally I Have a (dual) Purpose for these blocks! They are for Sally Sweet! This block is called Shortcut To School, and the fact that it is wonky makes it even better suit him. Very appropriate, don't you think?