Big Girl Feet Cynthia Frenette

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Another catchup post

I hate saying "I'm so busy" as an excuse why I haven't blogged in a few days but seriously, "I'm so busy!" with work. Work is crazy busy and I'm taking on new projects like mad- keeping on top of everything and  getting stuff done in decent time. But it leaves not much time for non-work stuff, including blogging. (And driving practice. Yikes!) I was going to say "fun" stuff but I love my work and for the most part it's all fun to me. Even the less artistic stuff like recreating logos into a screenprintable format, or converting Word files into usable artwork- no it's not glamourous but yes, it helps keep a roof over our heads so I'm not complaining!

Anyways! this week was a total doozy- I was up and at work insanely early pretty much every day, and by mid-Friday was done like dinner. Time to stop for the week. Needed some non-computer time. By this point all I could do was sit and knit, so I did. I have a few knit things on the go, more about those as they get completed.

But today, after a relatively decent sleep for a change, I feel in a crafty mood once again.

I realize I don't mention our Bucky cat much these days. Starry seems to take over, she's very busy most of the time, and Bucky just quietly goes about his business of sleeping 18-20 hours a day- he's old, he can't help but sleep a lot- maybe leaving the odd turd around the house, again, he's old.... 

We have a cute little white chair we got a while ago and it seems to be Bucky's most favorite place to sleep. It's out of Starry's way and she doesn't seem to bother him when he's curled up on it. However, black cat and white chair= not a good mix as far as getting covered in piles of black cat hair as soon as he touches it! So we've had this fleecy blanket on it that we got on our trip to Paris- a freebie from the airlines, but it's navy and kinda boring. So! I decided to make Bucky his own quilt!

He loves to lie on dark things- perhaps a black cat camoflage of sorts? So from my scores from the recent sale at Quilt Essentials and a few bits I had saved for an appropriately colour-schemed project, I started a black, green, yellow, grey quilt for him.

I found the pattern in American Patchwork and Quilting Mag, the February 2010 issue. It's called Band Together, you can see a little more info about it on FunQuilts, the designer, pattern page (about halfway down).

I don't have the correct full matching yardages as the pattern calls for, so I'm going scrappy with it and just building the strip blocks one by one with smaller pieces.

He seems to like it so far!

Do I get a quilt too?

In other news, our garden is slowly going into fall season. We did a bit of cleanup yesterday afternoon after work.

The bamboo really shot up and filled out this year, apparently the 3rd year in place it will get even larger so next year, watch out!

We've got lanterns coming along,

Tomatoes still on the vine, hoping to ripen before it starts getting cooler,

Pretty phlox,

And hydrangeas that have changed colour- last year they were a brilliant hot pink, this year kind of purpley- very pretty!

And that is about it for now, trying to be a better blogger, trying is the operative word! More later!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Famous last words

I think I'll skip the sale at the LQS, I have enough fabric already.... hahahahahaha you're kidding right?!

One quick phonecall from my fab friend Cynthia yesterday and we were on the road to Quilt Essentials for their big summer sale! Have you ever been? They have a massive table set up in the centre of the store covered in piles and piles of cuts of fabrics- you just start grabbing to fill the bag they give you and then pay by weight when you're done. I set myself a budget of $40, I stayed under at $37! 

I scored some great pieces and did go in with a plan- black, grey, greens/yellows for one project, and brown of any kind I'll take. Plus I scored a few little oddballs like a frenchie eiffel tower print and 2 with teeny fleur de lis in red and in blue and few others I couldn't resist in oranges, pink, and blue.

So on to my quilty plan: We have a cute little chair we got at Ikea in a natural muslin fabric. Bucky, our black cat, loves it. One day of sleeping on it and it is covered, like covered, in black fur. That cat sheds like nobody's business! So, my plan is to make a black/grey/green quilt to put on it so it can be removed to be washed but also not show the hair so badly. So that's my next project.

Also, I'm working on my sketchbook, I assembled the pages & bound them(ugh!) and then realized it needed way more pages than I had put together to fill it up height-wise, so! The cover/spine underwent some surgery, sliced down the middle and got 1/2" removed, then podged back together good as new! It's just drying now before the next step of staining it and then glueing in the bound pages. I haven't even started the inside yet other than that but I do have a plan and know roughly what I'm going to do with it. Can't wait to get started on it!

And that's all the news for today. Very glad it's not so stinkin' hot today! More later!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sketchbook Project- The Cover!

Cover is done- for now!

I'm leaving the back until I'm done the inside- once my ideas are inside and better formed, kind of like a "the end" or closing to the project (it does have the required sticker on the back in the required place, it peeled off the boring supplied book perfectly!).

Now I have to assemble and start the inside pages! I'm going to use the paper from the sketchbook but it's a bit thin and ripples under paint so I'm going to beef it up a bit with other paper and modgepodge or glue....! More to come!