Tangled Threads and Seaweed

Bloggie, I've Missed YOU.

I really really really have missed writing on my blog this last week.  I've discovered that  the daily post (at 8:30 pm) was a big part of my life and I need it.  I guess my blog is really a little taste of my everyday activities; hope that's what you come here for because that's what it is.

First: Saturday sewing on the 21st!

This is T's flag quilt, a UFO from a group project we worked on a long time ago.

This is T's bullseye quilt - another UFO from a group project.  She's thinking of bordering this to make it bigger and quilting these 2 tops together - for a 2-sided patriotic quilt for one of her grandsons.  Cute, huh!

This is B's 1930's baby quilt with hand embroidered bunnies in the border! Is this too cute or what??? Here's a closeup of the embroidery:

Amazing, right?!?

Here's the coolest thing.  Remember we did the tumbler quilts from charms that we swapped every month for a year?  Here's how B cut her 5" squares and how she used every bit of the 5" square:

 

The main tumbler piece - #1

This quilt made from the piece cut off the right side of the charm square. (piece #3)

  This little quilt is from the piece off the top of the charm square (piece #4).

The frog, bird, journal cover, and needle book were made from the piece cut off the left side of the charm square (piece #5). These fabrics were fused to a base to facilitate construction of these pieces.

The little strip #2 from the bottom of the charm square became this:

 

called "The Proof is in The Pillow", this is a clear vinyl pillow stuffed with the #2 pieces! Isn't this incredibly clever? She used every piece of the 5" charm squares! The rest of us were just overwhelmed.  We thought we did good to just make the tumbler quilt!

Our project last Saturday was "UFOs with a Twist" which meant - we worked on each other's projects!  I drew B's name, so I worked on her fused 30's applique blocks:

 These blocks were all fused and ready for a machine blanket stitch (or buttonhole) so that's what I did:

  I used the blue thread that B provided, as it matches the sashing fabric she's got for this little quilt.

T worked on my UFO, which is a log cabin quilt called "Tossed Salad".

The blocks are actually going to be set in a straight furrows setting, turned on the diagonal. The strips are all shades of green, pales yellows, and a cabbage purple and a chard red thrown in here and there. 

B worked on T's project, which is her "forever" project. She's making a foundation-pieced "Strip Diamond" quilt that will have over 500 diamonds. This is the UFO T works on every time we work on UFOs. B completed 32 or 33 diamonds on Saturday:

 Aren't they cool? I love strip quilts.

We had Papa Murphy's pizza for lunch, and some killer Nutella Brownies that B made. yum....  Next month, we're making a group quilt (9-patch and hourglass) project - turquoise, brown, and green fabrics totally from our stashes. I think we're going to swap some of our cut pieces before we begin assembling our quilts. And we're going to have salads for lunch.

OK, next update - I've been working feverishly on these pink socks, and was hoping to finish them by today.  Um. Well. I've got the second sock knitted just past the heel flap, so I could possibly be done tonight, but its acrylic yarn and it cramps my hands to knit it for very long.  So, maybe I'll get done, or maybe not. When I'm done writing this post, its gonna be full-blast knitting until the day is done (unless I stop for a nap).

 

 They are just beautiful, and I LOVE the pattern. Its extremely easy (even though there are a couple of mistakes in the first sock).

 The only other thing that's happened lately is I had to run over to Amarillo to take my sister's dog to the vet yesterday afternoon.  He's had a cough and been taking medicine, but its not really improved.  The house sitter called my sis (she's out-of-town on business) and told her the dog wasn't doing well, so my sis made an appointment with the vet for Rascals.  The house sitter "couldn't find" the vet's office and missed the appointment, so I went over after work and got the dog, and drove across town in 5:00 traffic to get to the vet's office. (the house sitter was AT THE HOUSE taking a bath when I got there!) The dog got some different cough medicine and a steroid to reduce the inflammation, but he's really just fine. I think he and the other dog are/were just lonesome. When I got back to my sister's house, the house sitter was gone.  I filled their water bowl and they drank it dry in about 2 minutes, so I filled it AGAIN and they drank more! I checked the bowl outside and it was dry too.  Then I fed them and gave Rascals his new meds. I also left the house sitter a note about the new meds.  Thank goodness, my sis will be home Sunday afternoon. I wasn't impressed with her house sitter's skills. (the house was a mess)  

And I'll close with my new quote:

"I'm not a bitch, I just have a low tolerance for bull crap". 

Weekend Catch Up Post

This going to be a quick one - I am absorbed in my sock knitting.  I have a pair I want to finish this week so I'm cutting back my computer time temporarily.

We had a great time sewing on Saturday. I'll post pics and tell about it tomorrow. OK?

I finished the black Crusoe Socks this afternoon - here's a picture:

love them, love them, love them!  Today has been a lovely, lazy day. I have been doing laundry and knitting, and petting the dogs.  I'll have more tomorrow....

Quick Wednesday Update

Crusoe continues to progress... I'm halfway through the heel flap. It will be done by the time I go to bed, and perhaps the heel turn completed as well. At this point I would ideally want to get the gusset stitches picked up before stopping for the night, but I'm not going to push myself. I won't get much (if any) knitting done tomorrow night, since I'm going to my bunko group. Saturday is sewing day with my girlfriends. More on that in Friday's post.

My boss... I've mentioned him before.  Today, he asks me (out of the blue) if I thought we (the three billing clerks) could move some stuff out of our 3 cubicles and make room if we needed to (he has an office).  I'm like, make room for what? He said that "some people" had noticed our 3 cubicles were "pretty spacious". Um... we've been in that area since the first of August. So I just pointed out that if we moved the file cabinets out, it would use the same amount of space for them to be somewhere else, while forcing us to work less efficiently. We each have our own files in our cubes so we can easily pull files when there are questions about orders and shipments. We don't have to leave our cubes to go file in a central file area (which we can't watch over 24/7) therefore we can stay by our phones and not miss calls (and we are all 3 on the phone with co-workers at the plant and at headquarters all day long). One of the girls has 6 printers in her cubicle - two are big huge monsters that print vinyl labels for drums and other containers. Seriously, you cannot lift them - it takes two guys - they have several feed trays and get HOT. She also has a separate set-up to ship Fedex packages which entails a computer & monitor and 3 more printers. It also requires a phone line drop which we waited till the end of September to get installed.  He thinks we could move that "somewhere else" too.  I'm wondering what he's up to.  We don't have any other people in our group. Whether we consolidate files into a cubicle and make ours smaller, or leave everything where it is, it will take the same amount of space.  I don't get where he's going with this, but something seems to be up.

I had to make a quick run to the grocery tonight for some lunch fixings and a bag of dry dog food.  Our dogs usually eat prescription food from the vet (Science Diet W/D) but I ran out yesterday and I worked late tonight.  Joe was busy too, and so the dogs were out of dry food. Joe can stop by the vet's office and get a bag of food tomorrow.

Anyway, I got sidetracked - while I was unloading my groceries in the kitchen, the tip of one of my acrylic nails popped off. Before I could even pick it up (because could glue it back on, I've done it before) that danged Goofy ate it right off the floor! Aaaargggghhh.

I Like Bloglines

Remember me talking last week about putting my fave blogs on bloglines? I like it. Its easy to do, and if I want to go leave a comment, its a click away. I still have some links to put up but its sweet. I'm still ticked off that blogrolling is still down. I'm getting geekier by the day...

I'm putting in some steady work on the Crusoe sock. I'm about an inch away from starting the heel flap. I was wearing my Maizy Monkey socks today, and got two compliments on them.  One girl was all like "I can't believe you can knit socks! That's so awesome!"  Yeah, I was kinda proud...

These are some comfy socks.

Monday Holiday

It was great to have the day off today! (Although I gave absolutely no thought to the Presidents, dead or otherwise)

I slept in, and then got up and started doing some laundry. I had wool socks to wash, as well as my other clothes and a load of sheets. 

The dogs barked all day long, because this was going on outside our front door:

 

Yep, the gas company is digging up our street now.  I don't know if this goes along with the pipes in the alley two blocks down from us that are dug out. They're making an incredible mess. The jackhammer is mounted on some kind of tractor or backhoe kind-of vehicle. And it banged all day long....

Here's the sock progress as of just after lunchtime today:

 

  I knitted all day long and now have about 5" of leg completed on the 2nd sock. Yay! I'm at the point, as you probably guessed, that I just want to get these done. Its really pretty yarn, and I like the pattern, but I'm getting tired of these and am ready to move on to the pink socks. This is why I should never give in to second sock syndrome. I feel like I have to finish what I've started or I'll never return to it. OK then. Back to my knitting!

Sunday is for Snoozing

Actually, we didn't sleep in today. We took Tara (DIL) to the airport to catch her 10:30 am flight back home to Alaska. She had 2 plane changes (Houston and Seattle) and won't be home until nearly midnight Alaska time (3 am in the Central Time Zone). She'll be tired tomorrow... 

I went back to bed when we got home, and did get about 3 more hours of sleep. I think Joe dozed on the couch for awhile.  After I got up we puttered around in the kitchen making late lunch/early supper (my mom would call that "slunch"). We had skillet burgers made with chopped onion, hamburger meat, and lots of garlic and pepper and some worcestershire sauce. We fixed some Indian-style rice with vegetables to go with it. Yummm.

Tomorrow there will be pictures - I finished my first black Crusoe sock. YAY ME!!!! I've cast on sock #2 and have about an inch done already.  Tomorrow is a holiday from work, so I am sleeping late, then knitting all.day.long.  Except I'll do some laundry and change the bedding too. I love having a day off!

Happy Sweethearts Day

I'm sure everyone realizes today is Valentine's Day. My sweetie and I didn't do anything special - finances being what they are - but we did have a nice day at home.  We listened to music (we get Sirius on our dish network TV) on the Coffee-House channel, which features mostly acoustic singer-songwriters.

I made Potato Soup for lunch today.  Not as time-consuming as you might think, as it was a mix.

You stir it into 8 cups of boiling water and simmer for 15-20 minutes.  I added a couple cups of cubed ham to the soup this time, and it was really good!

  The soup mix was $3.50 at the supermarket, and the ham was 99 cents per bag, and I didn't use all the ham. So I think it was a frugal meal, without all the fuss of making it from scratch.  And honestly I think it was nearly as cheap as buying all the ingredients to make it from scratch.

Here's what Joe brought home from the coffee shop this morning:

Yep, chocolate covered strawberries. Yummmmm.  They were awesome!

We also sat around drinking wine and I knitted.

Those are my Eleanor socks knitted from cheapo Bernat acrylic sock yarn.  The color of the month in SolidSocks (Ravelry group) is pink, so I started this sock today. I needed a break from the black Crusoe sock I'm knitting.  The pink was a pick-me-up, as well as being easy enough that I felt I had accomplished something. That wine was pomegranate, which we were mixing with an Asti (sparkling white) wine from Italy. It was something we sampled recently at World Market, and liked it. It was perfect for today. 

We're taking Tara to the airport tomorrow morning to go back to Alaska. I can tell from talking to Kevin that he's really missing her alot. It probably sucked for them to be apart on Valentine's Day. (we're old enough that it doesn't matter to us anymore) I spent about an hour on the phone with Tara last night, just chit-chatting. She's getting by, but is missing her mom something fierce. I was glad I called her, because she sounded like she needed someone to talk to. I don't think they'll be having kids soon... she was babysitting her two nieces and they were making her crazy. I remember that feeling!

Better Later than Never

TGIF! I am so glad to see this day come to an end. 

First of all, things are actually better at work. Business is picking up, so I'm busier. Yay me. So that is a big relief - my boss isn't driving me crazy like a couple weeks ago.

Second, we did have Fruitcake put to sleep today.  Last night was crazy - she pulled out a claw and the point was embedded in her paw-pad.  Yuck.  Blood everywhere.  However it wasn't a big emergency - I took her to the vet this afternoon. The vet just cut it loose and pulled it out of her pad, and she didn't even flinch.  He said she was suffering from renal failure, which was causing her to pee all the time, and drink and eat a lot.  Actually (geeky info alert) the renal failure causes the body to slough off protein thru the urine and through the digestive tract instead of absorbing the protein and nutrients, so they are hungry all the time yet becoming emaciated. This results in irritation in the digestive tract which is likely why she was passing bloody poops. At the same time, she was dehydrated (part of renal failure) and had lost from 8 lbs. in September to just 5 lbs. today. He said she probably had anywhere from a week to a month left. I told him we had been discussing this all week and felt like it was really time to do it now, before she began to suffer.  So it was done.  I cried a little, but I absolutely know it was the right thing to do.

Third, happy thing!!! I talk to my son all the time, but today I decided to call Tara just to say hi. (she is so used to talking to her mom every day.... and I thought I'd just call her) (not really trying to take her mom's place, but just being there for her). She's still here in town until Sunday, and was babysitting her 2-yr and 3-yr old nieces tonight. I left her a message and she called me back later and we talked for over an hour!!! It was really cool. I enjoyed it a lot.  We will do this more often from now on.  I <3 (heart) Tara.

Fourth.... the Crusoe sock is slowly progressing.  I think I knit 6 rounds tonight Tomorrow I will be knitting full-force.  I have GOT to get this sock finished. 

Ok, time to go to bed.  Huggy love, hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day tomorrow!!!

In Which I Nearly Faint

OK, we are on the verge of the apocalypse. Just so you know... Mr. Scooba and I have been married 31 years. Today he went to the store, without a list (written by me) and without me knowing he was doing it.  OMG. He bought groceries and refilled a prescription for me because he noticed my bottle was almost empty. Seriously, what the heck???

Do you think he's angling for a valentine?

Bark, Bark, Bark

Its a little after 9:00 pm, and Gracie is outside barking at the moon.  You've noticed the full moon, right? Last night she was out after midnight, bark bark barking. I hope she's getting it out of her system early for tonight....

We had a slight bit of excitement this afternoon. I headed home after work, and couldn't get into my neighborhood. The police, sheriff's office, and fire department had roadblocks enclosing the area in this map. On the news tonight, they said over 100 homes were evacuated and over 500 homes had electricity turned off for the duration of the "event".

  

View Larger Map

I hope this embedded map works right - click on the plus sign to zoom in - when you can see the area I've enclosed, the upper mark is my home and the lower mark is the leak.

Oh, yeah, I DO feel a little bit geeky because I embedded the map!  I just wish I could save it zoomed in like I wanted it.

Anyway, I called Joe, who was at home (but they let him leave). We went to the bar to have a beer and a burger, saw several peeps from our end of town there, and eventually someone got a call that the leak was fixed, power was back on, and we could go home. The incident lasted from around 3:00 pm until nearly 7:00 pm.

Woohoo, that's excitement in our town!  :)