Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Works in Progress. Aren't We All?

Does somebody want to grade Latin for me so I can knit to relieve the stress of grading Latin?  No?  Well, one argyle sock is done and the second cuff has been started.  I'm taking a break from the avalanche of 3rd quarter final exams I have to grade.  It's quite distressing, actually, even though my overall curve is good; someone seemed determined to get into every stanine from 30% on up.  Fortunately there is a strong plurality in the 90th percentile.  Ugh, though, I hate grading when there are so many students.  It's always interesting to see what choices they make, and depressing when they make unwise ones.  So much for 6th grade; let's see how 7th and 8th grades go.

It's the handwork that keeps me sane when the workload gets so intense and I start to worry about how the parents are going to react to Junior getting poor grades because he didn't bother to study the material from the pretest.  Unfortunately, it's times like this when I need it most, and have the least time for it.  I can feel the tightness in the neck and the migraine beginning, and there's very little to be done but push through the pain and hope the majority of kids studied like they were supposed to.  Fortunately Spring Break is soon.
Scrappy Trip Around the World blocks are multiplying.  It's slow, but they're multiplying.  I'm still organizing my scraps and having fun doing it when I get a chance.
A few crumbs and strings blocks that I was playing with as well.
The Crumbs auction quilt is at school, getting signed by everybody as I have a chance to visit classroooms.  All the upper school have signed it and I'm working still on K-2 and 4th grade still.




Monday, March 25, 2013

Design Wall Monday and Stash report

I had a tiny bit of time to play with the Scrappy Trip Around the World over the weekend.  I have a second block started, with some of the 2.5" scraps I've been sorting.  I've been spending a lot of time trying to organize the fabric, but it's not done yet.  I do find it very soothing, though.

Saturday was very crazy busy.  Secundus had a planning meeting for his Mexico service trip; Daniel flew in for Spring break; we had about 15 minutes for him to shower, change, and eat and then we left for the wedding.  Steve and I let the kids stay longer at the wedding reception and we had to duck out early to attend a memorial service for Steve's coworker.  Lots of emotional highs and lows.  I gave pretest quizzes for my final exams on Thursday and there's an obscenely large amount of other end-of-quarter grading still to do, besides all the extra work last week for parent conferences.  But Spring Break is coming!
Remember the shirts that were waiting for Daniel to decide if he wanted?  Well, he says they're "too blah" for him.  Yes, I actually thought that.  But they'll make great backgrounds and blenders!
Smudge showed up for some cuddle time this morning.  I wish he wasn't such a naughty kitty indoors, because he's very affectionate. 


Stash Report

Quilting fabric:


Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 22 yards
Added this week: 4 yards from the 4 shirts Daniel didn't want
Added year to date: 17 yards
Net used for 2013: 5 yards


Knitting yarn:
Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: an even 5500 yards.
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 910 yards
Net used for 2013: 4590 yards

Friday, March 22, 2013

Easy Street Finish!

It's finished!  Easy Street has the binding stitched down and the weather cleared up enough this afternoon to hang it over the quilt branch of the sycamore tree.  See those daffodils peeking around from behind the trunk?
I started it way back in November thinking about using up my lime greens, aqua blues and reds.  I started worrying a little that it was too Christmassy, so when I finished the blocks I made sure to use the blue for the outer border.  I even quilted it with blue thread.  I am sending out bright, cheery, spring-like vibes with this quilt.  I mean, it definitely will work for Christmas, but I don't think it's Christmas-only.  It was my first quilt where I consciously tried for a "modern" color scheme.
Easy Street is still up at Bonnie K. Hunter's website, but will be pulled in June to go into her next book.  I've seen a number of stunning different colorways around the web.
It will be a wedding gift for Eliyah and Nathaniel tomorrow.  Eliyah was our babysitter way back when and it is so great to be able to give her a quilt I made.  It is quite heavy, with all the dense piecing in it.  She's probably far too busy to be surfing the web today but just to make sure, I won't link this up to Facebook. 




Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Argyle Wednesday and Miles of Binding

Not really miles of binding, but closer to 400 inches, or 33.3333 feet.  That's a lot of stitches.  The good news is that I only have one side, or about 100 inches, to go.  Before Saturday.  I want to watch TV and stitch this evening.  Other quilting news: I'm collecting signatures on the Cedar Tree auction quilt.  And I continue to organize my quilting scraps into strips, strings, crumbs, small chunks, foldable sizes, and yardage.
I am ecstatic to announce the return of the Argylefest 2012, which hibernated for more than a year while I knit shawls.  When I unburied it, I discovered that I had developed a hole in the knitting and the only way I could figure to fix it was to rip back about 10 rows.  Which I did, and picked up the stitches and continued.  I have now reached the point where I need to put half the stitches on a holder and work on the heel.  I think I can do this.  It's very different from my favorite method of constructing socks: it's knit flat, with intarsia (which is almost a swear word for some knitters), it will need to have lots of ends sewn in later, it will need to be seamed later, it's knit from the cuff down, and will ultimately require Kitchener stitch on the toes.  But I think I can do this.  I even enjoy the intarsia, as long as the bobbins don't get too tangled:
It is a good thing I practiced intarsia on dishcloths first.  But still, it is fun.  I could see making more of these.  I at least have to make one more... the matching sock!  I am still working on The Colossus Rises by Peter Lerangis.  And a few other books are going to help me with figuring out how to do top-down heels: Sock Knitting Master Class and Socks a la Carte.
I'll be linking up to WIP Wednesday and to Yarn-Along.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Randomday on Tuesday

Any day that begins with a 7:00 am departure time with 6 8th-grade girls in a minivan to attend a choir festival an hour's drive away is randomday by definition.  So I will treat it as such.

When you have 8th-grade girls in your car, all roads lead to Justin Bieber.

Did you know that the Terwilliger curves are hilariously funny?  Me neither.  I think it was the way they pronounced "Terwilliger," but maybe you had to be there.  Oh yes, I was there.  I don't get it.

Tertia stayed home from school today after her epic Awkward Moment yesterday.  She did not throw up again and should be able to return to school tomorrow.  Steve worked from home today so he could keep an eye on her.

One of my knitting friends last night commented that Tertia really provided a valuable service to her classmates, by probably giving them such a negative association with ... you know ... that they will stay away from ... you know ... until they are well past adolescence.  Maybe, but I do feel like we should buy a gallon of Lysol and gift it to her Health teacher.  I am grateful that Tertia does not seem to feel embarrassed at all by her ultimate awkward moment.  I would quite literally have died.

Sometimes it must be an advantage to have Down syndrome.

Tertia knows when Justin Bieber's birthday is.  She still remembers the birthdays of most of her elementary school classmates as well.

It was great to hear the choirs in Newberg.  My second drive to Newberg in 4 days.  Cedar Tree 8th grade choir did very well.  So did the other choirs.  I know the director of the Veritas choir from 15 years ago when we both were in Denver.  We were young moms together.  Now we are very busy, not-so-young moms, deeply involved in the Classical Christian school movement.

Tertia's IEP meeting was today.  Public school teachers are probably paid 8 times what I am plus benefits, but they are stretched very thin these days.  It went about as well as those things go... we heard lots of statistics about what kind of testing and what kind of accommodations and what kind of expectations for next year there are, and decided she should take art for her third elective next year.

"Sped" is apparently no longer an insulting term, just professional abbreviated jargon for Special Education.  Tertia's teacher just got her master's degree in this field.  That's probably good for a pay raise to ten times my salary.  Sigh.

I have parent-teacher conferences later on this week.  And the pretest for the final exam.  And Saturday will be extremely busy, with Daniel coming in, Secundus attending a planning meeting for a missions trip, a wedding at which Steve will be playing piano, and then possibly rushing off to a funeral for a co-worker.  So although it will be Randomday on Saturday, I will probably not be blogging then.  Enjoy your dose of random for the week.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Quilts of the Past - Amethyst Bear Paw. And the Ultimate Awkward Moment

Okay, so a last-minute change of plans for Design Wall Monday.  I'm featuring a quilt from the past, finished in 2008 I think, a collaborative effort between my Aunt Carol and me.

It happened like this:  I am at that awkward stage, finishing up the binding on one quilt and not having any other newly-started projects to showcase at this exact moment.  Then in 8th grade Latin this morning, just as I was previewing test questions for my students, my cell phone buzzed inside the purse inside my filing cabinet.  I'm kinda surprised I actually heard it, but my maternal instincts were already keyed up:  "I should probably take this," I said to my assembled class, "my daughter wasn't feeling good this morning."

Sure enough, it was Tertia's school office calling.  She had thrown up and someone needed to pick her up.  I told them I was with my class right now and could they please call my husband.  Then I returned to the altogether too-gleeful 8th grade boys: "Did she puke?!!"  Well, yes.  There followed some cheerfully delighted comments about puke and its consistency before I settled them down enough to focus on Latin for a brief time.  Very brief.

I came home to find Steve with Tertia, looking pathetic on the couch because she will miss the bowling match and she clearly doesn't feel good.  I asked her where she was when she threw up.  "The stage."  "Do you mean where you go for dance class?"  "Yes, but no dance this week.  Health."  Yes, apparently my daughter threw up right in the middle of THAT 7th grade health lecture, giving the other girls, I'm sure, a wonderful middle-school memory that will last a lifetime.  I think she may have discovered the ultimate awkward moment.

Oh well, on to more pleasant subjects.  The Bear Paw quilt was pieced by my Aunt Carol, who gave the unquilted top to me when she came to visit one year.  Why yes, my aunt does give quilts as hostess gifts, because our family is cool that way.  It sat for awhile before I was able to get up the courage to quilt it: it was before the Megaquilter when I did all my quilting on my little Viking 630.  Here's a closeup of the quilting:
Nothing like quilting feathers in purple variegated thread on a white background to conquer fear of feathers.  It was hanging for awhile but now it mostly lives on the guestroom bed.

On the stash report, I have made lots of progress using up yarn stash!  If you recall I finished this bathmat:
and these socks in the past week:
The bathmat used 8 strands at a time.  I estimated, but it used a lot of yarn. 

Stash Report:

Quilting fabric:

Fabric used this week: 1 yard for Easy Street binding
Fabric used year to date: 22 yards
Added this week: a few scraps from Grandma - not counting them!
Added year to date: 13 yards
Net used for 2013: 9 yards

Knitting yarn:
Yarn used this week: 4620 yards for the rug and the socks
Yarn used year to date: an even 5500 yards.  Wow!  I'm going to make another rug!
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 910 yards
Net used for 2013: 4590 yards

When I'm not working on sewing down the binding, I'm organizing my quilting stash and giving the shelves a good spring cleaning.  I may have that little task finished later in the week.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Randomday - Latin Olympika

Today the kind and hardy folks at Veritas School in Newberg sponsored the Latin Olympika.  Our eager students, 30-some of them, enjoyed the day as always.  I got to be a question-reader!
There were 5 rounds, and in the 5th round we had 3 teams in our room.  There were 5 CT teams at the Intro level and 2 at the Latin 1 level.  I pretty much used up every tree theme I could.
"Lucus" (Forested pastureland) ultimately won at the Intro level.
 It was a true Olympika, with a foot race and relay, and even discus throw.  It was good to have an athletic activity to blow the cobwebs out of the brains after 5 straight brain-busting sessions.
It was a bit cold and damp outside though.
Tree-climbing was not an official athletic event, but look at how versatile Cedar Tree students are -- climbing in their dress uniforms!
Final round in the main hall; this is the finalist Latin 1 team.
Ribbons for the winners in athletic, academic, and team certamen events... here are most of Cedar Tree's contingent.
Quarta's team came in second at the Intro level.  Stop-and-go traffic all the way back to the Couve and an accident on the I5 bridge, so we are tired and ready for a relaxing evening, if possible.
It's National Quilting Day!  I plan to get a little of that in.


 

Friday, March 15, 2013

Cave Idus Martias!

I am in that slightly fey, slightly frenzied state that Latin teachers get into on the Ides of March when they have grade reports due and a Latin Olympika to help coordinate and multiple small people to escort to various special events.  But I'm getting lots of things finished or almost finished.  Earlier this week I finished the socks on size 0 needles; last night I finished the rug on size 15 needles with a crocheted edge.  So, project Zero to Fifteen is done and I will have to figure out what to knit next.
It lies pretty flat!  It used up a lot of yarn!  It is super cushy and absorbent, which is a good thing in a bathmat!  Find it on Ravelry here.

I also just finished quilting Easy Street, unpinned it, and trimmed the edges, but after wrestling with it did not have any extra energy to take a photo.  Next stop: binding!  The wedding is next Saturday.

Oh yes, I made pie yesterday - grape - in honor of Pi day.  And then because we have Quarta's friend Minuet over for supper tonight I made another one today - blueberry.  I guess the theme is "purple toga pies."

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Wednesday in Fabric and Yarn

Habemus socks!  They were an epic swath of stockinette on two size-zero circulars with a Zauberball lightweight fingering yarn.  They were finished last night, during Tertia's choir concert.  Steve will want to wear them tomorrow.  There was quite a bit of hanging out in the Room of Tears after the first pair of socks I made for Steve this year felted; I am hoping for a longer life-span for these.  I am posing them alongside The Colossus Rises, by Peter Lerangis, which is what you probably want to read after Percy Jackson.  It features middle-school misfits with dysfunctional lives and strange superpowers, but the characters are slightly less hilariously endearing.  I'm only a little way into it though, and it's certainly a page-turner.  In honor of the new pope I should probably also mention Henle Latin I and II, which are my textbooks for teaching Latin at a Protestant Christian school -- but which have indeed impressed me with the intellect of those Jesuits.  After thirteen years teaching Latin, I could understand the announcements before the reporters, which was a nice feeling!
My other knitting project has turned into a crochet project... I'm still working on the border of that bathmat rug.  I get to pick out the next knitting project/s soon!
The quilting of Easy Street continues.  I had a day off from school today because my students were all taking the National Latin Exam.  I really needed it, with allergy season starting and feeling run-down in a low-grade kind of way.  It's almost 75% done now and the final border is in sight on the rollers.  I can't really quilt for extended periods of time, it's just too draining, but I did it in short bursts in between watching pope coverage and running errands.
Now that my Crumbs quilt top is finished, it's at school awaiting signatures from all students and staff.  It's always so fun collecting signatures, K-12. 
Since finishing the Crumbs top I have been working on organizing my existing scraps.  I stayed up way too late Monday night doing this.  My scraps are not noticeably less than they were before, but I'm excited about how organized they are becoming!  In the foreground, left to right, I have my "crumbs" bin for small bits; in the bag are triangles, precut polygons orphaned from other projects, and orphan block fragments waiting to be given new life; in the large bin are my "tinies", scraps bigger than crumbs but still not usually longer than 8" in any direction.  In the background although you can't see too well, there are bins for strips: 1.5", 2", 2.5", 3.5".
I have a bin for "foldables", which probably need to be subcut into strips at a later time.  All of these fabrics are mainly remnants from other sewing projects or reclaimed from other clothing or household textiles in the time-honored, thrifty way.  You would think after making a Farmer's Wife quilt and two crumbs quilts from them they would have gone down a bit, but no.  I'm not even showing you my color-organized bins of fabric that I bought specifically for quilting.  They still need to be organized. And there are all those shirts that I bought last week that need to be cut up.
I'm linking up today to WIP Wednesday and the Yarn-Along.



Monday, March 11, 2013

Design Wall and Stash report: Finished Crumbs Top

Here's what's on my design wall!
 
My Crumbs top is done!  I had few marathon piecing sessions over the weekend and finally got it together late last night.  This is the top that I will take into school over the next few weeks and collect signatures from all the students and staff.  Then I will quilt it and turn it over to the auction committee.  Last year's quilt raised $700 in the live auction, although my other quilts that I donated were in the silent auction and didn't do as well.  So I'm just doing the one quilt this time.  I stayed up a little extra late to begin the marathon task of reorganizing my scrap bins.

And hey! Since this is a finished top, I can count the fabric towards my stash busting!  This is 64" x 76", good for a twin bed (or a dorm bed, what a great keepsake!)  Because it is densely pieced, I'm estimating it used up about 5 yards of fabric total.  But oops!  I bought fabric this week, in the form of shirts when I went thrift store rummaging.  I will estimate 1 yard per shirt for 10 shirts that are cleared to enter stash.  Even though I haven't "deboned" those shirts yet.  Then there are 4 more shirts that may be Daniel's or may go into the stash; I'll wait on those.
The knitting projects are both close to completion but I can't count the yarn used yet.  Here's the multi-stranded cotton bathmat, which I decided to finish with a double-crochet border.  A knitted garter strip would have made it a little too big and unwieldy.  I'm 25% done with the border.  And I'm also working on the cuff of Steve's socks.

Stash report

Quilting fabric:
Fabric used this week: 5 yards for Crumbs top
Fabric used year to date: 21 yards
Added this week: 10 yards from thrift store shirts
Added year to date: 3 yards
Net used for 2013: 8 yards
Knitting yarn:
Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: 880 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 910 yards
Net used for 2013: -30 yards in the hole and working hard to finish more

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Randomday: Improvisational

It's a Tardis.  It's obviously a Tardis.  Bolstered by the Pointless Dr. Who References amongst the polyptetons and synechdoches of last night's Cedar Tree Spring Program version of "The Dragon and St. George" with 52 figures of speech, which was written and performed by the senior class, I decided that what my Cedar Tree signature quilt really needed was a Tardis.  Even if Steve didn't get it, it's a Tardis.  It's blue, it has that light thingy on top, it's sitting on a field of monster sunflowers reminiscent of the Van Gogh episode, it's made out of the cosmic fabric of the universe, and it's just waiting for the Seniors to sign it.  If they want to.

"Improvisational" is almost a synonym of "Random."  I am observing Randomday by going into high gear with improvisational piecing on the Cedar Tree Auction quilt.  I am still missing ...<runs off to count the blank spots>... 13 blocks to make up a full count.  I don't think I'll get them all done today, but the improvisational piecing goes fast.  The family room floor is being held hostage until I finish and decide on a final layout.

I also need to do three Latin translations for the Latinstudy list... Caesar's de Bello Gallico, in which Sabinus was a fool and negotiated with an armed enemy (against EVERY principle of Roman history from the very beginning!) and Cotta and the rest of the legion paid for it with their lives; Bede's Ecclesiastical History, in which various unpronounceable kings and tribes are being evangelized by well-meaning bishops who occasionally stumble over the proper dating of Easter; and Lucretius' de Rerum Natura, in which the author decries the dehumanizing influence of religion in lush heroic, philosophical poetry that is, to be quite honest, several notches above my reading level.

I need to do the Greek lesson for Sunday School tomorrow, preferably alongside of Steve so we can maximize our effort.  He is kind enough to compare himself to Ron and me to Hermione when we do our Greek homework together.  But after Latin prose or poetry translations, Greek grammar is pretty much a walk in the park, just in a different alphabet.

Steve is dropping off his car for service at the dealership and I need to go pick him up.

Our first daffodil is blooming outside.

Steve just finished watching a Perry Mason episode in which the murderer was identified by lip prints.  If Perry Mason is to be believed, lip prints are as distinctive as fingerprints.

I carpooled multiple 7th graders over the the Spring Program practice on Thursday.  I think the secret is to split the boys up.  When I drove for the Fall Program, I had all boys in the car and I never want to do that again.  They're nice boys, but it worked much better when the girls were present to exercise their civilizing influence.  I apparently do not count as a civilizing influence just by my lonesome.  Goodness knows I try, though.

This is apparently my 518th blog post.  I forgot to make a big deal about the 500th.

I still think it obviously looks like a Tardis.

One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy -- Jane Austen

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Rummaging

It had been awhile since I had a good rummage.  Sometimes the primal need strikes, and I betake myself to the Goodwill Outlet where they sell the things that didn't sell at all the other Goodwill stores in bins, by the pound.  I have been reading Bonnie K. Hunter's books, Scraps and Shirttails I and II, in which she describes reclaiming shirts, cutting them up for their fabric, and turning the fabric into scrappy quilts.  It's not like I haven't made many quilts this way before, but last year, I put myself on a fabric and fiber diet and didn't buy much of anything.  So I was way overdue.
I bought 12.9 pounds, at $1.39 per.  That worked out to $19.44.  There were 19 100% cotton shirts, a pair of Levis for Secundus, a t-shirt for Tertia, a tweedy sweater to unravel for the yarn, and an oven mitt.  Steve and Secundus each claimed two, to actually wear.  I'm wearing a 5th one.  The above are the ones that will definitely be cut up for fabric.  Below are the ones that I'll let Daniel see if he wants first.
Here is the oven mitt... it's not just any oven mitt, it's a hand-appliqued souvenir oven mitt from someone's trip to someplace in Latin America.  You just never know what you're going to find when you rummage in the bins.  Isn't it pretty?
Some of the tags from the Goodwill stores were still on a few of the shirts.  If they had sold for asking price, just those 5 shirts would have sold for $43.  But I think the regular Goodwill stores overprice their shirts.  Karma works out in the by-the-pound bins, though.  Have I mentioned the time I found an Alice Starmore sweater?  Or the souvenir Irish Aran?  Or the semi-vintage, unfinished quilt top?  Yes, it sometimes does the soul good to rummage and come away with bags of useful and pretty raw materials and clothing FOR LESS THAN $20.00!  It was worth the aching shoulders and close encounters with lingering unpleasant smells.

I may need to rewatch this video on How to "De-Bone" a Shirt before tackling all those shirts.

Meanwhile, I made some more crumbs blocks:
I have almost enough to start seaming up the top.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Wednesday Check-Ins

It's Wednesday, and that means it's the day for WIP Wednesday (quilting) and the Yarn-Along (knitting and reading).  I look forward all week to these progress checks, and I try to make both of them every week.  I've found so many interesting blogs through both of them.  Here's this week's progress:
Evaluating the crumbs blocks for the Cedar Tree auction quilt:  I'm going to need about 120 of them, and I have about 80-90.  They fall into one of these categories: tree blocks, double-height tree blocks, star blocks, abstract blocks with at least one small bit of patchwork as a focal point, completely abstract/whimsical crumbs blocks, orphan blocks made up of traditional patchwork like 9-patches or log cabins.  There will be the tree blocks and a dark green inner border to tie it all together, but I love the improvisational, free-wheeling process of piecing these little 6" gems.  And my sewing area's still a big mess!  Stay tuned.
This is Monday's picture of the progress on quilting Easy Street.  I'm about at the halfway point and I need to get more thread.  There are some ripples quilted into the back... it's such a huge quilt!  But I'm persevering with it.
The Circle of Fun bathmat is finished, at least the inner circle part is.  Now I have to seam up that center bit and figure out how to knit on a garter stitch border.  The Mason-Dixon knitting ladies have you knitting a garter strip for approximately 3 years and then sewing it on separately, but I really don't want to do that.

And I just read my first Asterix book!  Can you believe I've been a Latin teacher for 13 years now, and this is the first time?  I picked up Asterix and the Actress from the floor of my daughters' room the other day and actually read it, giggling the whole time.  Now I really need to check out the rest of them.  Woo-er!
And speaking of reading projects, here's Tertia with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...
...and Star Wars.  She couldn't decide between the two of them, although she's 60% done with Harry Potter.  If you wouldn't use the word "retarded" to describe this bright and active girl, and there's really no reason why anyone should... would you please "spread the word to end the word" and help erase the R-word from being used as an insult or term of derision.  That's something that everyone should be able to agree on, regardless of politics.  Thank you!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Political Tuesdays - Just How Free is Our Press?

The Obama Administration wants to pin all the responsibility for the sequester on the Republicans, for political purposes.

Bob Woodward wrote about it in the Washington Post.

The venerable Bob Woodward, who broke the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon presidency, is threatened by the White House because of coverage unfavorable to President Obama.

Woodward is far from being the only one. 

Dr. Benjamin Carson is told not to offend the President in his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.

The Obama administration has such a tightly controlled message, it never deviates from the teleprompter script.  Limiting access, especially for "unfriendly" outlets like Fox News.  Never letting an opportunity pass to trash and demonize Republicans.  In the campaign, it was all a show of cooperation and compromise.  Now, when there's a real need for wise government, it's all politics, all the time.  Except for when you're playing golf or giving away Oscars, of course.

Even the ivy-covered halls of academia have their political requirements for admission to their sacred precincts.  No dissent, or you'll be persona non grata.

Reminds me (and you know it wouldn't be Political Tuesdays without a Roman history lesson!) of the original guy who had a little list.  Lucius Cornelius Sulla, dictator of Rome during the Social War, arch-enemy of Marius.  He found it easier to accomplish his political objectives if he eliminated those unfriendly to him.  It is easier to do this when you do not have a Constitution and a free press.  I'm just saying.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Quilting designs and Stash Report

The design wall is in stasis right now, but here's what's developing on the Megaquilter frame, where Easy Street is in progress:
I'm using an allover squiggle-loop-flower design, with two different kinds of flowers inspired by flowers I saw in Machine Quilting Solutions.  Here's the "chicory flower", with Muffball in the background window.  I'm approaching the halfway point -- I love the squiggle-loop pattern because I can do it fast.  Backing fabric is all greens and reds, but I'm really trying for a non-Christmas vibe, hence the blue thread.
And in this one from a slightly different angle you can see the "double daisy".  And oh look!  Muffball is giving me her "We are not amused" glare!  We are so privileged to have a cat of her stature with us, and she doesn't want us to forget it!

Linking up with Patchwork Times so you can see what others are working on.

Stash report has not changed since last week for either quilting or knitting.  I should have at least one knitting finish soon though.

Quilting fabric:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 16 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 3 yards
Net used for 2013: 13 yards

Knitting yarn:
Yarn used this week: 0 yards
Yarn used year to date: 880 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards
Yarn added year to date: 910 yards
Net used for 2013: -30 yards in the hole and working hard to finish more