two boys, two quilts, ten months apart...

Last night I was working on hand-sewing the binding on the quilt I'm finishing up for my nephew, and Martok decided to curl up against my hip and keep me company.  He soon decided that wasn't close enough, and moved his head to rest against the quilt itself.  There's a reason my quilt labels say "made with love and border collie fur" after all!

This reminded me of a similar photo I took back in February, when I was sewing the binding down on the quilt for my best friend's soon-to-be-born son.  Curzon kept me company while I worked on that one, and this is one of my favorite photos of him from the last months of his life.

He's asleep on the quilt I'm working on, just wanting to be close to me.  So many little details in that photo that are so dear to me now - the little white hairs around his mouth, the crimps in his tail feathers that you can just see hanging off the couch, his soft ears turned down at the tips.  Ah, I miss him so.

I still need to post about our trip to Utah, and probably some of our fun November events - two tournaments and a Thanksgiving weekend house party.  Tonight is the Child's Play Charity Gala, which is a grand time to be had by all in very fancy clothes, despite the bitter cold we currently have in the Seattle area.  It will be chilly, but lots of fun!

bits and pieces, crafts and puppies

Today's post is a lot of photos, because I've done a lot of stuff recently and it's always more fun to post and write about photos than it is to just put together large blocks of text.  Plus, I've done that way too much at work recently and I'm sick of it!  So here we go, in themed order...

Dogs!

My irises in the front yard are incredible this year - there are TWENTY flower stalks up, all with multiple buds/blooms on them, and they are just phenomenal.  They're the only thing in my yard that really is amazing, and I am enjoying the heck out of them right now.  Jadzia wasn't quite so sure, however, but she gamely hopped into the flower bed for me to take a photo.  I think this is the year I need to split the irises, so that will be a new adventure later this summer or sometime into the fall.

Martok hasn't learned how to play fetch in the rotation with the girls, so I've been taking some walks with him to get both of us some exercise.  I have also been taking Ezri with me, much to her dismay, as Martok is preferring to walk thisclose to her, as the photo shows.  Ezri is also not a fan of being walked on leash, so she's been pulling a lot, so we got her a harness last weekend to help minimize the effects of her pulls on her own body.  We'll see if that helps!

Craft Projects!

Back in April, I finally got around to getting an ink pad and nice paper to do pawprints of the dogs, and after I was done I used one set of them to put together this frame.  The prints came out really well (and the dogs were surprisingly good about it), although it amuses me that their feet-fur shows up so much in the prints!  The frame is an inexpensive floating-glass frame, so I can easily add one of Martok later, remove them to put together into a bigger frame, or just make a whole new one in the future.  I really like having it up on the wall, it's across from the door to my office so I see it every day.

And of course, I've picked up more spindles, as they're just a big an addiction as fabric for quilting.  These two are Bosworth spindles, both special order.  The smaller dark one has a whorl made from live oak (and a shaft made from bocote) that was harvested in the 1700s and then kept in ponds for use in repairing the US Navy ships at the time.  These ponds were eventually forgotten about and reclaimed by the forest, until they were recently found and the wood reclaimed and used by various craftsmen.  The larger red one has a whorl made from flame box elder and a shaft made from cocobolo, and is stunningly beautiful.  I've coveted something made out of flame box elder for a while, and I am thrilled with this particular spindle.  Both spindles are great to use and have small Phat Fiber sample projects on them right now.

Just this past weekend I cleaned up my sewing room and pulled out the materials to work on Aidan's quilt again.  I have just one panel done so far, though all the pieces are cut out already, and I designed another panel this weekend and it's ready to piece together.  This quilt will be the sibling to Averie's quilt, done very similarly, and hopefully completed in time for his birthday in September.

I finished knitting two pieces in February and March and they're shown here after a wash and during blocking.  The cowl is made from a single skein of fancy variegated yarn I bought from a store going out of business, and I love how the colors pooled to form large blocks in a slanted pattern.  The scarf is made from a skein of Manos merino singles, knitted up on size 9 needles in a simple garter/stockinette pattern I came up with on the fly.  It goes well with our new flyball club colors, and I have a second (nearly identical) one almost done to give to one of my friends on the team.

My first sock has made it to the "turn the heel" phase, and there it languishes.  I'll need to pick up stitches as I continue on, and my pattern isn't very detailed about that so I need to pick up a book or tutorial to figure out how best to make that work.  It's pretty cool, though, and I love the needles I'm using (Signature DPNs), so I plan to pull this one out and figure it out soon.

Still spinning as well, and I set aside my interminable fine spinning of the brilliant red Targhee wool I bought at OFFF last year to ply these two batts together.  The yarn came out very well, one batt is dark purples and one was cream with purple and blue, and I think the overall effect is very nice.  These batts taught me that I'm not so much fond of spinning chunky things, especially uncontrolled chunky things like mohair locks, although I do think the plied yarn came out well.  I still need to wash it, however, as I plied it back when we were still deep into the rainy season.

The last craft for this post is one I did not do myself, but one which I will benefit greatly from - my friend Kristie made me a set of "Unpaper Towels" using the best cheesy Star Trek fabric you've ever seen.  The towels are made from terry backed with quilting fabric, serged into squares, and set with snaps so you can roll them up onto a paper towel roll, then use them instead of paper towels.  I have used them for a few days and I like them a lot!

Miscellaneous!

Between the nicer weather appearing through the last few weeks and my attempts to increase my step count, I've been taking walks along the waterfront at work during my lunch break.  Most days I also take a spindle with me and spin as I walk, garnering several odd looks but no comments as of yet.  Such beautiful views are just a small part of why I love to live here.

 

And then there was this - I had the bottom couple of inches of my hair dyed a rich vibrant purple.  I LOVE the effect, it's fantastic, and sadly it has already faded away to a pale lavendar after just four weeks.  I'm having it redone this weekend, and will see if there's anything else the stylist can do to help it last longer - I'm already not washing the ends and rinsing them in the shower with as cool water as I can stand.  If not, I will probably keep it up until I am ready to cut my hair again, then just trim it all off and go on with my regular golden blonde.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today marks sixteen days since we said goodbye to Curzon.  Last Friday we picked up his ashes (or cremains, as they are called in the industry) from the vet, which was a very difficult thing for me to do.  I held him in my lap the whole way home, making Chris drive us, and wished so hard that I was hugging Curzon for real instead.  I know that won't happen, but the thought of that keeps hitting me anew every so often and it's like a punch to the gut every time it does.  For now the nice cherry box that his remains are in sits on top of one of the dressers in our bedroom, along with the blanket I made him when he recovered from his surgery and his collar.  Perhaps it is strange to admit, but I do talk to him even as I hate that he's in that box, and I have hugged the box more than once.  It helps, a very tiny bit, and that's all I can do now.

I've also been thinking more and more about the time we had between when we brought Martok home and when Curzon passed, that too-short span of just eleven days.  Curzon was so amazing with the puppy for the first few days, and we had such a good time with our photo session on that Saturday.  He had a great time at practice on Sunday, even as we realized he'd lost the sight in his right eye.  Monday was very difficult, but with more pain meds he seemed back to his old self and we had a good time all week.  Saturday was a beautiful day, and the rest I've already talked about.  I don't like to append too many human emotions or decisions to animals, but I also do think they are wiser and more perceptive than most people believe.  I'm coming to the conclusion that Curzon had been in pain for a while, and when we brought Martok home that was the signal he was waiting for to release himself from that pain.  Curzon had that wonderful Saturday where he played, saw lots of people he loved, and had steak for dinner, and I think that was his way of saying goodbye to us all.

It was too soon for me and Chris, and maybe it was even too soon for Curzon.  But I could never countenance his bright spirit suffering without hope of respite, and I would not want to hold him here in pain - that's why we had the vet come on that sad day.  I can only hope that his spirit will visit me upon occasion, and continue to inspire me in the future.

oooh, shiny

One of the things that spinning has given me in the past year is an appreciation for pretty wood and excellent craftsmanship.  I've always loved pretty things (who doesn't?) and have magpie/dragon tendencies to collect the shiny things and keep them around to stare at the pretty.  Back in January, I finally gave in and ordered a custom Golding spindle - a Scottish thistle inset on a purpleheart whorl.  I've seen several iterations of spindles made with that inset, but never one on purpleheart, and so I talked with the creator and he made one for me, even using a two-strand silver ring instead of a three-strand one to lower the weight to be closer to my ideal.  The spindle is incredibly beautiful, with chatoyance that I haven't seen on much purpleheart wood before, and it's a dream to spin with.  In the background of that photo you can see the tiny 2" featherweight spindle made of Karelian birch that I ordered at the same time.

I've also been considering a second spinning wheel, in particular a Hansen miniSpinner which is an electric spinning wheel designed to work on regular power, from a battery, or from a car cigarette lighter socket.  With a friend who loves hers, plus quite a lot of raves on their group on Ravelry, I went up to FibresWest in Cloverdale BC to try them out in person.  I liked them just as much as I thought (or feared to), and ordered mine while I was there.  I chose a purpleheart body with a WooleeWinder flyer/bobbin setup, with the bobbins and flyer done up in maple since they're not available in purpleheart.  I will definitely be traveling with this little critter, and I've even had it set up in my office on my desk so I can spin while playing WoW (during raid wipes or long flights, etc.).

And at long last, the quilt I've been waiting to make for quite some time now has been finished, gifted, and is now being used.  My best friend loves Dr Seuss, and so several years ago when the fabric line featuring his art and designs was released, I grabbed a fat quarter pack as well as flannel for the backing, knowing that one day she'd have a baby who'd need a quilt.  The pattern is quite simple, just a block with a "keyhole" on one side that is made up of just four pieces per block.  The fabric is quite busy on its own, and so I wanted to showcase large chunks of the designs while still having some pattern and play, so this idea worked out great.

I quilted this all in straight lines, using stitch-in-the-ditch along the blocks as well as simple diagonals across all of the blocks as well.  I did all of this freehand (but not free-motion) on my Janome MC6600P, using black/white variegated Superior brand thread on both top and bottom, which provided some depth to the stitching without being distracting.  This is probably my best quilting job yet, I'm quite proud of it.

I chose a black/white chevron fabric for the binding, which had the excellent effect of appearing to be a bias-cut diagonal stripe for most of if due to the small widths that I prefer to use.  I think it looks great against that eye-searing red/blue flannel background, and should be great for little infant eyes to focus upon!

Of course, I had a little helper when I was spending the better part of a week on the couch hand-stitching the binding...this is actually one of my favorite pictures of Curzon I think I've ever taken.  He was making sure there was extra love and naps put into every stitch!

And of course, the very-important label on the back.  My friend had not chosen to reveal the name of her son before he was born, so since I gave this to her at the baby shower, he got a generic nametag.  I thought about putting "Loki" on there, as that's what I had been calling him in place of his real name (he was due April 1, so I found that fitting), but decided in the end to go with the boring version.

And in closing, a most awesome picture that Chris took of Curzon and I at his first laser treatment a week ago.  He tweaked his back about a week and a half ago, probably from overenthusiastic (on my part) yoga ball work, and our teammate and veterinarian Nicole was happy to give him an adjustment, massage, and a red laser treatment to help him heal.  He's had 3 treatments so far with 2 more to go, and I think it's helped a lot - he certainly seems happy!

last quilt of 2012

At the beginning of last March, I went to the Sewing Expo in Puyallup, and one of the classes I took was a "slash it up" quilting class.  The technique taught used twelve fat quarters stacked up and then cut up in a random pattern, then shuffled and reassembled to create a quilt top.  I finished the quilt top in the spring, but it kind of languished as I worked on Averie's quilt (and started, but stalled on Aidan's quilt) throughout the rest of the year.  In November, however, I decided that it needed finishing to give as a Christmas gift to my sister in law, and so I worked hard to finish it up.

Ezri decided to photobomb the picture of the finished quilt, shown laying over our couch.

 Fold of the quilt showing the backing (including the feather fabric I had to use to complete the backing) and the striped inset made from the leftovers of the original quilt blocks.  I had bought out the rest of the bolt of the brown/black fabric used for the sashing and intended to form the whole back of the quilt, but it wasn't enough and I couldn't find any more.  I used a neutral feather pattern to take up the space, and while I wasn't thrilled with it I think it did turn out looking pretty nice.  I also had some difficulty with seams, and ended up using some bits and pieces of iron-on labels to cover those problems after the quilt was completed.  I managed to make it all look intentional, but this wasn't my proudest finish to date for sure.

Back of the quilt after washing - you can see more of the random straight-line quilting that I did after it was washed.

Binding shot - I love this purple color that I chose for the binding.

My sister in law loved the quilt, and I think it will be well used and enjoyed, so that is awesome.  Right now I have two baby quilts in progress, one that's finally ready for quilting (and that baby just had his first birthday), and another that's in the piecing phase and must be done by March 2nd for a baby shower.  I absolutely have to put down my knitting and spinning for a while to get these done!

the month of May in pictures so far

The month of May is passing quickly, and the blog posts that I write in my head somehow don't make it to the computer...so I'm going to do a photo post update!

May 4th was our tenth anniversary,which was spent with our friends in Canada for a flyball tournament.  Most of our evening was spent playing the horribly awfully fun card game Cards Against Humanity, but my wonderful husband did get me a beautiful anniversary band.  It's diamonds and sapphires in white gold, with a black finish applied on the parts where the sapphires are set - very different from the usual band, and I love it.  Right now I'm wearing it on my right hand, however, as a week later I somehow jammed my left ring finger and it's still swollen, so that I can't get my band off or my engagement or anniversary rings back on - very irritating!

At the tournament I got not one but two 0.000 perfect starts with Ezri - and earned a t-shirt for my accomplishment!

Phoebe was quite tired after the weekend, as again she ran as savage height dog and at the age of 13, that's finally starting to tire her out.  I was pretty amused by her choice of sleeping location, as it's only been two years waiting for her to figure out she could sleep on the little cushion I put up there for her.  In other news, we are looking for a wonderful retirement home for Phoebe will she will be loved, spoiled, and not have to deal with bitchy herding dogs for the rest of her life.  I hope we can find one, she deserves and has earned a quite respite for her golden years.

The Subaru has been inching steadily closer to the magical 100,000 mile mark, so one day last week I gave up and just drove around a bit until I got it to kick over so I could pull into a parking lot for a picture.  I had a picture of the 50,000 mark when I got my very first iPhone, but it was lost on a software update soon thereafter, which has always made me a little sad.

A friend of mine gave me this delightfully nerdy 80s version of the Aperture Science logo to put on my RV trailer.  It's fantastic!

Another Windstone dragon has come home to live with me, this one a Coiled Dragon in a limited edition color of Black Emerald Violet.  This is my first one of this type, and the black is incredibly rich and gorgeous in person, very different than the colored sculptures that I have already.

The lilac bush that lives in the middle of the stairwell in the back deck has grown even bigger and this year it produced about 16 flowers - the most ever!  The poor thing hasn't held up well to the heavy rain we had yesterday, however, so I went out and clipped several of the flowers to bring them in for me to enjoy.  I think we're going to have to strap or tie the main stalks of the bush upright, as they've been leaning a bit for a while (aiming for the sun, I think) and are now laying across the guardrail on the deck.  Very beautiful, nonetheless.

On Saturday my friend Christy and I spent quite a while doing squilt-related things, including a trip out to a quilt shop that was having a 25% off sale for their anniversary as well as sewing time.  I managed to complete the quilt top started in the class I took at the sewing expo in March, and I've conceptualized what I need to do to piece the backing so that I can put it all together.  I also spent some time working on the baby quilt that I am making for a friend's son, and of course I have one that I have started for my nephew that I hope to finish before his birthday in September.  I need to get rolling!

But even with all of the quilting I want to do and need to do, I'm still doing some spinning.  I was getting frustrated with the first batch I was working with, so I grabbed another spindle and a different batch of fiber and started a different one.  It's a lovely color and is working a little more easily for me, which is very nice and relaxing.  I just need to do it more often - like so much else!

And as if all of that wasn't enough, tonight I am taking a wheel spinning class - whee!

first quilt finish of 2012

At long last, I have finished the quilt for my niece, Averie!  Originally meant to be a Christmas present last year, I had to put it off as I realized just how much work was going into a (almost) twin-sized quilt especially since she and her brother are young enough that I'd need to have both ready for an event like Christmas.  Her birthday is in March, so that was my new deadline.  Of course, I thought her birthday was March 15, and it turned out to be late last week, so I didn't make her birthday like I intended...but I will make the deadline that I thought it was, as it will be shipped today.

I've spent the last two weeks watching TV/movies and sewing down the binding, and I finally finished it on Monday night (while watching Black Swan, which is an incredibly creepy and crazy movie).  Yesterday when I got home from work I added the label and tossed the quilt into the wash to see how it would finish up.

The final dimensions stayed very close to the pieced dimensions, and the quilt is about 54" wide by 92" long, give or take a bit.  I was targeting 54" x 90", as that's what I had found for twin quilt dimensions when I searched for them back in the design phase, but apparently I found incorrect measurements as most twin quilts are at least 60" wide.  I'm a little sad about that, but there was nothing I could do at that point as I'd already completed the quilting and was about to put on the binding, so it is what it is.  It's definitely long enough, as Chris had to stand on a folding chair to hold the quilt up for a picture!

I did end up with one minor problem on this one, which I didn't really parse until it was too late.  While sewing down the binding, I came across about an 18"-24" stretch where there were apparently tension issues when the binding strip was machine sewn to the front of the quilt.  It didn't seem like a problem, so I went right ahead and hand-stitched the binding down...only to find when I rotated the quilt that you could see similar tension issues on the front.  If I had really thought about it in time, I could have re-stitched the machine part before the hand sewing was complete.  At this point the way to fix it would be to rip out the handstitching, resew the seam, and redo the handstitching, so I decided to wash the quilt and see what happened.

The problem is much less noticeable after washing, hurray!  The binding is very securely sewn in place, so as long as someone doesn't grip that edge of the binding and try to rip it up, I think it will be just fine.  The location of the weird area is down at the "bottom" of the quilt, so if it's kept on a bed it shouldn't be used as a grab point very often, and if the quilt is used as a lap or play quilt then it probably won't be gripped by just that spot all the time.  And worst case if it does come off, I know what to do to fix it.  :)

Yesterday marks six weeks post-surgery for Curzon, or 42 days.  He is continuing to be his own normal and awesome self, being loving, cute, playful, energetic, and a pain in the ass just like nothing happened.  I did manage to make him yelp a bit the other night while messing with his scar tissue, but he forgave me quickly with some belly scratches.  At flyball practice this week we moved up to full recalls over all four jumps (set to 7"), and also started the bounce drill for equipment respect and made it to 3 jumps set at 18" by the end of our first session.  Curzon REALLY wants to go hit the flyball box though, so I don't think we'll keep him away from it for very long - hopefully we'll start some wall work with him either this week or in three weeks.  Next weekend will be hard on him as we're going to a tournament that he's not going to race in - but he'll run in the May tournament, so it won't be long!

I think I will take him swimming at the therapy pool another time or two, and then we'll transition back to the regular "dock diving" sort of pool exercise so that I can take Ezri and Jadzia along with us.  I've really enjoyed swimming with him, however, it's very nice to spend time with just one of my dogs upon occasion - and being able to submerge in 75F water in the middle of winter isn't bad either!

In closing for today, this was posted up on Facebook and it really struck a chord with me - this is exactly what the rabid religious right is trying to say with all of their attacks on women's rights.  It truly disturbs me that a woman's right to contraception and abortion is being questioned in this time, and it disgusts me that Senate hearings about these very topics don't include any women, either giving testimony or making decisions.  Santorum is definitely living up to his redefined name (thank you Dan Savage) with his continued insistence that women are fit only to bear children.  Oh, he doesn't use those exact words, but his actions and beliefs that contraception is unnecessary for "good women" and that all of our country's problems are due to women not staying home with their children are more than enough to send the message.  The other candidates for the Republican nomination are spewing the same sort of vile, bitter hatred towards women that is just astonishing and depressing.

 

These men want nothing more than to remove women's rights to control their own bodies.  They want to spread a culture of fear under the guise of religion, they want to give more money and control to corporations (whom they consider "persons" unlike the very women that birthed them, married them, and were born to them), they want to deny legal protections to anyone not like them (i.e. white, straight, and "Christian"), and they want to take away support and rights from the very people they are trying to win the election from.  I hope that the American public wakes up soon, because if this loss of women's rights happens, our country will be set back decades and it may never recover.

spinning class recap

Spinning as in yarn/thread spinning, that is.  Not the exercise bike kind of spinning.

One of the classes I took at the Sewing Expo last weekend was a beginner's hand spinning class using drop spindles taught by Morgaine Wilder of Carolina Homespun.  I have been somewhat intrigued by the concept of spinning for a while, and it was recently brought back to mind when I re-read The Mists of Avalon as the women's work of spinning, weaving, and embroidery is a constant theme throughout the story.  So I signed up to take this class, and I had a very good time and really enjoyed Morgaine's teaching and the opportunity to learn how to do this once-common and basic skill.

I'm not going to attempt to explain or teach the basics of spinning in this blog post, as I certainly don't have the experience or credentials to do so.  I do have a ton of pictures of my learning process during class, however, so here we go.

The first drop spindle I picked out of the box and the first piece of roving, before we did pre-drafting work on the roving to begin the spinning process.  Unfortunately I was too rough with this one when trying to spin a leader and the hook on top of the shaft pulled out, so I had to change spindles shortly into class.

Leader successfully spun and additional spinning of the yarn is underway.

Spin and park method - after putting twist onto the yarn with the spindle, I put the spindle between my knees to hold it steady while I draft out more fleece and allow it to spin into yarn.

First batch of a yarn single complete!

First batch of yarn single off the spindle and wound into a ball.  The next piece of roving to be spun is in my lap next to the now-empty spindle.

More yarn is made from the second piece of roving!  Morgain also gave us samples of three different other fibers (although of course I cannot remember what they are now) to try and spin at home.  Two of them are purple, yay!

Two spinning singles complete, off the spindle, and wound into balls.  The next step is to ply the singles together (in the opposite direction that they were spun) in order to make a two-ply yarn.

Plying the singles into yarn - it was hard to keep those tiny (and uneven!) balls of yarn from flying off my lap and onto the floor!  I see why so much additional equipment can be helpful for something as simple and portable as spinning is supposed to be.

Completed two-ply handspun yarn, on the spindle.  I haven't taken it off the spindle yet, but the next step is to skein it (not wind into a ball) and then very gently wash/wet it so that the wool fibers "wake up" a little and nest together.  This is supposed to smooth out the plies and make the yarn look a lot better, although with my very amateur first attempt I don't know how much it will improve!

I had a lot of fun at the class, and ended up buying another spindle (ooooh purpleheart wood) and some additional fiber and other bits and bobs from the Carolina Homespun booth at the expo.  I've spun up the rest of the main fiber we used in class, and am planning to work on the other samples next and see if I can get more consistent yarn and possibly thinner yarn as well.  This is a physical skill more than it is a mental one, it's all about training my hands to do what I want them to do, and I like that a lot.  Yay for learning new things!

Here is a 5-week post-surgery photo of Curzon.  He's continuing to be awesome, with full health and activity levels as he bounds across the house and plays tug with anyone who will come near him.  Apart from a slight wrinkle in his skin, the scar is almost invisible now, and it will only become moreso as his fur continues to grow in.  That's my boy!

And last but not least, here is some of the pretty fabric that I bought at the expo all cut up using my Accuquilt Go! cutter into 3.5" tumblers.  The sparkly and marbled fabrics are all hand-designed, and the batik fabric was just pretty and in the right colors.  I'm planning to make a tumbler quilt for myself using a wide variety of purples and dark blues, including some of these special fabrics that I like so much.