Interesting Times

Keeping busy here in Threadlines Land. And as always, there are lots of ways to keep occupied.

Slowly, slowly, I'm handstitching my way around the perimeter of the Delectable Mountains quilt. You know how it is--I seldom get to the quilt before 10:00 p.m. Stitch six inches, fall asleep. Repeat the next evening. And there is usually a big lug of some kind sleeping on top of the quilt. That makes it all even more tiring to work on. And who is the boss of this quilt anyway? Opinions differ.


Some socializing has been happening. Below is my fabulous college crew--we all met freshman year when we were thrown together quite randomly in the great dormitory mixing bowl. Among these pictures are three sets of people who were roommates from Day 1 in our freshman year. How amazing is that? To say I have been through everything with these wonderful women is a huge understatement. And for HOW MANY YEARS???




Finally, there has been a road trip.



I spent today in Madison with my cousin--half the day at Madison's legendary Farmers' Market and the other half doing more conventional retail therapy. Good for what ails you!

Little Fellow/Blue and Yellow

Yay! My little blue and yellow baby quilt is finished. It's simple and straightforward, made to be dragged around and cuddled. Hope little Nicholas Oliver enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it for him.




I decided to do a freehand-embroidered label, the better for durability and quickness of sewing. And after seeing it done this way on a blog somewhere, I sewed it on by machine.



Among the squiggly quilting, the label stitching hardly shows. Works for me.

Off to work on the Delectable Mountains binding.

My Weekend

A good portion of the weekend was spent in the quiet of the closed library, TRYING to get a handle on Dreamweaver and that blasted website.


Cautiously, CAUTIOUSLY, I'll say I'm making some headway. Of course, I've had to compromise on some of my artsy ideas because I just can't figure out how to make it all work. But it's looking like there will be a website.

At some point.

That said, I've gotten a lot more accomplished too. Binding is machine sewn on both the baby quilt and the Delectable Mountains quilt. So the bindings are half done, and I have the slow half in front of me. There's that hand sewing to do, a couple labels to make, and then two more quilts will be in the 100% done column.

And Lucy and I have spent lots of quality time together--some good walks, a mini car show at the library yesterday, and as much snuggling as we could fit in.


All that activity! Lucy obviously needed a good long restorative nap. Me too.

My Back Pages 4

Back in the fall of 1996, I was newly (and happily) unemployed and the Internet had just arrived in my life. Once I was connected, the first thing I did was to go looking for quilt-related online adventures. I joined the QuiltBee listserv and of course was immediately and totally inundated with gobs and gobs of email.

Eventually I ended up in a small spin-off QuiltBee group and had a lot of fun with that for about a year until things went south with most of the group, which is neither here nor there. But along the way, we made birthday blocks for each other. Each person had a signature block and then made it for the others in colors of the recipient's choice. Each time I made a block for someone else, I made a block for me too. So I have a set of star blocks in wildly disparate colors which have been languishing in the orphan bin since about 1997.



I was thinking about the lost treasure (or not!) in my orphan bin and dug out these blocks a couple weeks ago and have had them on my design wall. I'm thinking they would make a pretty little quilt, sashed with something quiet.




Since this seems to be The Year of Getting Stuff Done (just finishing up quilts #5 and 6 for the year, SO FAR. Quite a total for me!), I ought to get on with this one too, and reduce that orphan pile just a bit.

Antidote

This website business has been messing with my mind in a severe way. Progress is slow: a small victory, followed by a couple large setbacks. I come home at night and veg and sigh a lot.

So the antidote for all this icky work stuff is dedicated sewing time. Tonight I got started quilting the blue and yellow baby quilt.

No prize-level stuff here--just the generic stipple. But I like the rounded squiggles with the square lines of the blocks.


And it should go fast. The recipient is growing by leaps and bounds, and won't be a baby for long.

I PROMISE more imaginative quilting when I get going on the Milwaukee Art Quilt Challenge.

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Mr. Kathie took off today for a few days of male bonding in the Yoop with a couple old friends. So it's Lucy, Boris, and me, on our own.

Playing Hooky

I got the call that my Delectable Mountains/Kansas Troubles quilt was finished, and the trip to pick up the quilt ended being a day-long field trip.

My friend Deb had a quilt to drop off, so we went together. Spent quite a bit of time being toured through the quilting studio of our long-arm artiste, Marge. She lives in the country outside Whitewater, Wisconsin, with a lovely view of wetlands and prairie as she quilts. She has fabulous samples, and her personal fabric and thread stash--unreal.

My quilt is GORGEOUS! I had it quilted with a swirly pantograph design and was beyond pleased with the results.


Once I have it bound, I'll photograph it in more detail. And Marge's quilting comes with a custom embroidered quilt label. Nice touch.


The trip to Marge's morphed into lunch at Karina's in Whitewater, WI. Excellent enchiladas... Then we consulted the maps for shops to hit. We found two with Sunday hours, Back Porch Quilts in Fort Atkinson, WI, and Tea and Textiles in Jefferson, WI (where the flooding remains absolutely shocking to see).

The resulting booty:


I clearly don't get out enough. I know those Dick and Jane-type fabrics aren't new, but they surely struck my fancy. I'm thinking gifty tote bags, maybe for holiday gifts.

It was a great day of escape from the trails and tribulations of web design. Back to the real world of all that grief tomorrow.