Random Thursday 6-5-14

June is one of my favorite months of the year.  We had such a long, drawn out winter here in the Upper Midwest and a fairly cool spring, but now that June has arrived, it feels like a different world. Like when the Wizard of Oz movie changes from black and white to color.  Everything is so lush and verdant green!

My yellow irises opened this week!

Remember getting out of school the first part of June, when it seemed like the summer stretched out before you with so much fresh potential?  If you were like me, you followed your whims for a time.  Sure, there may have been swimming lessons and babysitting jobs, but whenever possible, you slept in 'til late morning, went for walks or bike rides when the spirit moved you, hung out with friends and talked about everything and nothing, hit the tennis ball against the house (and tried not to break the windows), played "horse" basketball (and tried not to break the yard light on the garage), watched Match Game and The Gong Show, walked the dog, painted your nails, pored over Teen Magazine, Glamour, and Cosmo (shhh...), and wrote in your diary in a rainbow of Flair pen colors.  Maybe next month you'd start sewing your back-to-school wardrobe, but not now.  Now there was dreaming to do.

Well, I still sort of feel that way come early June.  Sure, there are things to be done, but they can wait a bit.  This is the time we longed for back in January, February, and March.  No more heavy coats, no navigating snowstorms.  We move about the world more freely and less encumbered.  And now it's here!

Not much sewing has been happening this week, except for piecing together a quilt backing.  But when I'm not working part-time Job #1...

(Working from home, pants are optional.)

or part-time Job #2...

I've been making my way through the third book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  

I haven't been able to get the audio version for this book from the library, so I am just reading, reading, reading.  It's is a thick novel, and I am not a speed reader, just enjoying the journey page by page.  After that, only five more books to go!  :P

In a way, I miss being able to multitask, i.e., sewing while listening to the audiobook, but then again not.  There is surely nothing wrong with sitting on the deck with a really good book in the glorious month of June.

Of course, it's not all sitting on my duff.  I walk a few miles every day around the neighborhood.  It seems the least I can do for exercise, but I enjoy it especially this time of year, with the birds and blooms, fresh smells on the breeze, the ever changing sky. 

Truth be told, though, I have been lollygagging around on Candy Crush.  It took me a couple weeks, but yesterday I finally beat level 29.  Sure, go ahead and laugh.  

I've never been much of a gamer.  I've never won a game of Scramble with Friends with my daughter yet, either.  (That's the sum total of all the games I play: Two.) I'm getting better, though, and I believe that day will come.

We had a family get together on Memorial Day, also to celebrate my dad's 82nd birthday.  Here are the siblings and I and Dad.

L-R: Darrell, Me, Dad, Nita, Russ

On Monday, Dad lost five trees in a storm, one of which came down right where we were standing for that photo.  Thankfully, the downed trees missed the garage and other outbuildings, but took out his peonies, garden bench, compost barrel, and wheelbarrow.  The garden will need replanting too, as it got washed out in the deluge.  Today the tree guy is coming to cut up the wood.  Sometime later, it'll get chipped into mulch for the path down to the pond.

Darrell and Russ entertained a request by Dad to play Galveston by Glen Campbell. They did mighty fine.

What about you?  How are you enjoying the first bit of summer when you're not sewing?

Linking to Really Random Thursday at Live a Colorful Life.

Really Random Request

So I've been commissioned to make a baby quilt for a friend whose daughter just had a little boy, and I'm excited to get started.  The pattern has been decided upon (chevrons) and the color scheme (primary-ish).  I've heard the baby's room has a vintage Pac Man theme.  Does that sound cute or what?

I would love to be able to find some of this fabric to incorporate into the quilt.

It's called Ghost Geo by Timeless Treasures and it's apparently out of print and out of stock everywhere I've looked.

I'd be happy with a quarter yard (not a FQ, but a true quarter yard), if I could find it.  Does anyone have any in their stash they'd be willing to part with, or know whether it's still available at your local quilt store or an online shop?  I'm willing to pay a reasonable price plus domestic postage to me in WI.

If don't find any in the next couple weeks, I'll happily go ahead without it, but thought it doesn't hurt to ask.

Last evening, I did some fusing of the feathers (or leaves; tomato-tomahto) onto the Tea Towel Challenge Quilt.  Doesn't it look like the barnyard exploded?  Like BAM!  What just happened?  Maybe someone threw a tomato at the hen house or who knows what mayhem is in the works.  I'm sure everything will be all right, though. 

Anyway, the thought made me giggle.   It adds a fun element to the control of such a stylized tea towel, while still seeming to maintain overall symmetry.  Eegads, listen to me, talking out of my tail feathers!

Anyway, I think it's good to ruffle a few feathers here and there.  Shake things up, rock it out.  I was watching American Idol as I stood at the ironing board last night.  Contestant Caleb Johnson knows what I'm talking about.  I think I enjoyed watching judges Jennifer Lopez and Keith Urban really get into the song at about the one minute mark, as much as anything, but the kid has got some pipes!

Linking to Really Random Thursday at Live a Colorful Life.

Really Random Thursday 4-11-13

I am a little stumped as to how to quilt Tea Towel Tess, but I went ahead and basted it together yesterday.

If you baste it, it will come...  The idea, I mean.

I'm going to trust that inspiration will ensue.  There will be curves followed.  There will be wavy lines.  This I do know.

I also made some more criss-cross blocks.  The first four can be seen HERE, along with a link to the quilt pattern.

Lots of fun to use up colorful scraps.

I am finding far more strings than scraps, so you know what that means.

Time for a string quilt (or five) soon.

Also have plans to sew some "made fabric" from the bits and bobs.

I am using scraps from the freezer, lately, as well, which makes for some interesting meals.  I am avoiding the beef liver and oxtail for now (though we will eat them eventually).  We had venison pepper steak earlier in the week.  I love venison.  I used the last package of the two Dad gave me last fall.

Then I made something with mettwurst, specifically mettwurst made from a different kind of game.  This kind.

Wild Canada Goose mettwurst.  In this part of Wisconsin, with its heavy German immigrant influence, there are some wonderful, small-town sausage makers, which have adapted to use local ingredients like venison and goose.  If you bag it, they will make it into sausage for you...salami style, hot sticks, bratwurst, mettwurst, etc.

I added some fire-roasted tomatoes and a jar of pasta sauce, and we ate it over spaghetti.  It was awesome.

By the way, I recently tried a different brand of gluten-free spaghetti, which I found at Walmart in the regular pasta aisle.

It is hands down the best gluten-free spaghetti I have tried, and I've tried a lot of them in the past six years.  It holds up to cooking, refrigerating, and rewarming as leftovers, and tastes/looks/feels just about the same as regular spaghetti.  Nobody is paying me to say this; it's just my personal opinion.  Before that, I liked Mrs. Leeper's brand, but that was grainier in texture and didn't fare all that well after refrigerating.

You know what else gets a little sticky?  Wrapping up a post after talking about noodles!

Really Random Thursday 3-28-13

It's the Really Random Thursday, March 28 edition.  Otherwise known as:  

What I have been doing while wishing winter would just go away, already.

Tea Towel "Tess" is a Flimsy
First and foremost, I finished the Tea Towel Challenge flimsy this week.

Now she awaits quilting (ever waiting, that Tess). Also a backing and binding selection, but minor details.

The good thing about March and daylight saving time is that you can take a photo outside at 6:45 p.m., never mind that it is still on top of a pile of snow.

Temps were in the 40s yesterday and today, though.  I went for a walk around the neighborhood, dodging and navigating puddles of mucky runoff, but it sure beats a sheet of ice.  The walk outside was also quieter than my treadmill, which has decided to take up its own kind of moaning and groaning.  The repairman has been summoned.  I have been bucked off a treadmill that was on the fritz in the past.  Not an experience I'd like to repeat, though it does get the heart pumping in a fear-for-your-life, adrenaline rush kind of way.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up
In other news, this headline on the front page of our small town paper seemed amusing, though I'm sure the incident itself was anything but (full article here).

Al Gore may have invented the internet, but this guy may have invented the original Spam attack (i.e., the canned kind). 

A Bona Fide Binge
Other than the aforementioned flimsy, not a whole lot else has happened in the sewing room this past week month.  I blame my 30-day Netflix trial.  And Downton Abbey withdrawals (among other things). 

Nonetheless, I do not regret the diversion.  I watched one costume drama...

(Matthew Macfadyen, Eddie Redmayne)

after another...

(Hugh Dancy and Hugh Bonneville—a Hugh-o duo!)

after another.  

I very much enjoyed this last one, in particular.  Damien Lewis plays Soames Forsyte, a possessive (and obsessed) tyrant, though you do kind of get where he's coming from.  I liked him better in Band of Brothers, but The Forsyte Saga miniseries was very well done.  If you've got a hankering for Downton Abbey era shenanigans, you will like it.

That said, I am so glad I wasn't born in a previous century (well, technically I was, but you know what I mean). Women had it rough, yo.  Sure, the clothes were lovely, if you could afford them, but underneath the veneer was all that repression and constriction.  And I'm not just talking about the corsetry.

I also watched a few documentaries in between.  It's good to balance all that romanticism with a brisk face-slap of reality, you know?  Gotta love Netflix for the variety of documentaries not available at the local Redbox.

My media junkie-ness hasn't been limited to the visual.  I've been listening to some fascinating nonfiction as well, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Wow, the stuff you never knew.

But enough distraction.  There will be more sewing soon, sure as spring will come.  Sarah has once again put together the annual Hands 2 Help Charity Quilt Challenge.  If you haven't already checked it out, please do so and join in, if you can.  I have signed on to make a quilt (maybe two?), and the wheels have started turning.

Sing me out, Stacey, and tell it like it is.

Really Random Thursday 3-14-13

I seem to have spent a week in neutral as far as sewing goes, except for a bit of work on the Tea Towel Challenge.  I made some more drunkard's path string blocks (actually only the string parts thereof).  

The idea was to make the next border with mostly cooler colors, greens, purples, etc., but I am not sure how that is going to look.  Will there actually be a second border like that, or will I end up taking apart what I have sewn so far and mixing things around? 

Time will tell, I guess.  For now, I'm forging ahead with the DPs.  We'll see where it goes from here.

* * * * *
I recently watched the 2009 Masterpiece Classics version of Wuthering Heights.  How did I miss this before?  I do love me a romantic costume drama.  Anyway, thank you Netflix for the recommendation.

Tom Hardy stars as the tormented Heathcliff and...swoon...is about all I have to say about that.  Oh, and lips.  Holy cow.

I had seen Tom Hardy in Lawless and Inception ("You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling" Best line ever!).  

I have Warrior in the Netflix queue next.  I'm appreciating his fine acting ability; he's quite mesmerizing to watch!  ;)

* * * * *
Now for some tech talk. 

I recently added a gadget for emailing blog posts to those who wish to subscribe, and this service is managed by Feedburner.  (See the right-hand column of the blog page.)

It works pretty slick, from what I gather from friends who are using it.  However, when my dad asked if I'd gotten his reply email to a recent post he received by email through Feedburner, I had not. And thus it occurred to me there was a problem.  I set about troubleshooting it this morning and eventually found the fix.

So I offer this information for other bloggers who use Feedburner and may want to check the status of their reply email address.

Problem:  Reply email setting for posts emailed to subscribers (originating  from Feedburner service) is set to "No Reply."

Solution: 
- Log into Feedburner.google.com.
- Click the "Publicize Tab" at the top of the page.

- Under "Email Subscriptions" in the left-hand column,
- Click "Communications Preferences"
- Check the "Email From" Address - if it is "no reply," highlight and change to the email address where you would like to receive replies.

- Click "Save" at the bottom of the page to save changes.

Even though  my regular Blogger account has my correct reply email address, somehow it defaulted to "no reply" in Feedburner.  You would think otherwise, but apparently not.

So now, Dad, and anyone else who cares to reply directly instead of commenting on the page (which I appreciate too, of course), you can simply hit "Reply" to the email.  The reply should come directly to me.  It won't post in the comments.  If I start getting spammed, I may have to change the setting back, but I'll let you know.

Linking to Really Random Thursday at Live a Colorful Life!

Really Random Thursday 3-7-13

Some really random things from in and around the house:

A generous friend gifted me with some fabulous fabrics last weekend.  "So you can get your orange on," she said.  That made me smile!

* * * * *
Funny she should mention orange.  I am probably going to sell these items in a garage sale or on ebay in the spring, but in the meantime, I have to store them somewhere (in the basement).  These are some vintage Georges Briard plates/cups/saucers.

Sitting on top of a vintage valance of 'shrooms!

* * * * * 

St. Patty's Day is coming soon.  Would you like to make a mug rug?  Fetch my tutorial HERE!

* * * * *
I'm stalled on Tea Towel Tess at the moment.  I did fix my boo-boo in the top row of DP blocks (had them backwards - thanks, Sue!).  When I get some time this weekend, I'll proceed.  Still formulating ideas for the second borders.  There will be purple.  Just where and how, I'm not sure.

* * * * *
 This morning, I watched a hawk noshing on a less fortunate member of the winged kingdom.  He took his time, more than a half hour.  Meanwhile, I went in and out of the kitchen and took photos from time to time, which I made into a video set to music below.  Sorry about the delay between frames.  I'm still learning this video thing, and the program automatically decided how long between frames based on the song length ("Bait and Switch" by The Shins). 

 

Linking to Really Random Thursday at It's a Colorful Life!

Really Random

There has not been a whole lot of sewing this week, but I have spent quite a bit of time in the sewing room nonetheless, folding fabric and clearing clutter.  I am done now for a while.  Not as in there is nothing left to do, but just that I've had enough of that foolishness.

The good thing about folding all your fabric is that you get to see and handle each and every piece.  Then you start to think things like you should be using more of your stash, and why on earth did I buy all that Denyse Schmidt fabric in the same color? 

The only actual sewing I did was to make a block for Victoria's call for anvil blocks for a quilt to be made for a friend of hers who has cancer.  I whipped this up right away and drove it straight to the post office.

* * * * *

Okay, in my last thrifting post, I was talking smart about not buying anything if it's just going to live in the basement, 'member that?  Well, I got to thinking about a vintage metal tray I'd seen at St. Vinnie's but did not buy.  Did.Not.Buy.  And then I called my friend and fellow thrifter, Terry, to see if he could pick it up for me the next time he stopped there on his way home from work (because he swings by frequently).  Buddy that he is, he said sure.

Here she is taking a bubble bath in my sink right before...

...she went to live in the basement!  Specifically, it's hanging out on the wall, where I can look at it while I fold or cut fabric, and smile at my own weakness.

Doesn't it look kind of like a Liberty of London fabric?  The tray is chippy and scratched and tarnished, but I don't care.  It was under two dollars!

* * * * *

Norm called me from the grocery store on Saturday.

N:  Hey, whatever happened to that cantaloupe I bought last week?
P:  News to me.  I haven't seen a cantaloupe.

N:  I swear I bought one last week, but I don't remember seeing it after that.
P:  I have not seen any cantaloupe around here for months.

N:  Uh-oh.
P:  (Silence.)

N:  It must still be in the trunk of the car.

And so it was.  One good thing about winter in Wisconsin—your trunk doubles as a rolling refrigerator.

Remind me to tell you the fish story sometime.  Hint: A package of frozen fish forgotten on the floor of the back of the car in July will smell like a Sasquatch crawled in and died.  Also, your car interior will require professional cleaning with special chemicals after that.

*****
Lastly, I've been listening to a lot of music this week.  I even caved in and bought an import of Rival Sons new album, which hasn't been released in the U.S. yet.

But this is cutie pie, Bruno Mars.  If this doesn't make you want to dance along, I don't know what will!   


I'm linking today with Live a Colorful Life for Really Random Thursday!

Declutter Report No. 1

The "Out-the-Door October" decluttering has been going okay.  I am working my way up (or down, as the case may be) to my basement sewing room.  That room intimidates me, frankly, because it's the most cluttered space in the entire house.  Everything that doesn't have another home ends up there.

So far, I have sold 11 items on eBay.  Woo-hoo!

I took photos of some mid-century tables to put on Craigslist, but I haven't gotten around to listing them yet.  One is in need of refinishing, but it is apparently a brand of mid-century Scandinavian furniture that's pretty hot right now, which I did not know until I perused eBay to research the name to get an idea of what to ask.  Doesn't look like much here.

But ho-lee-you-know-what.  Do an eBay search on this name furniture sometime and you will say it too.

Who knew when I basically trash-picked the thing 14 years ago?  I just thought it had good bones.  But after almost a decade and a half, since I've never gotten around to refinishing it (and now I wouldn't dare do it myself), it's probably someone else's chance to have a crack at it.

I went through my kitchen cupboards and refrigerator (tossed a bunch) and pantry.  I have a bag set aside for the Boy Scouts food drive this Saturday.

I unearthed stuff I totally forgot I had, like brand new Pampered Chef grilling utensils.  Might have been good to know a few months ago!

I went through my bedroom today.  I'm trying to motivate myself in baby steps, like seeing if I can get rid of 10 things per room.  It usually leads to more, but 10 seems like a manageable goal without feeling overwhelming.

This is the Goodwill and/or give-away-to-friends/family pile.  Also a few things to take to the local historical museum, if they'll have them.

The museum has a room named after the guy who owned these books, one of which dates back to when the state was still a territory.

Now for some really scary stuff...are you ready?  It's the basement sewing room.

Augh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Terrifying, isn't it?  My great-great grannies peeking over the detritus in the center there would be mortified.

Keeping in real, yo.

I did venture in the other day but promptly sidetracked myself into pulling fabrics for a Christmas table runner.

And so, the saga continues.

Oh, and here's a pretty scary thing that came out of the garden at my uncle's.

That is a ginormous beet!  With a normal-sized apple for comparison.

But, like the decluttering process, it is less intimidating if you cut it into smaller pieces (and roast with a little olive oil, salt & pepper...p.s., it was delicious!).

Have a great weekend, all!