dabbling

A view often seen in the mornings---Skyler sees DJ down on the floor doing his exercises and he thinks he should be right in the thick of things, LOL. There was some question as to whether he planned on moving out of the way of the sit up.

Well, another week has passed by and we have moved onto September. The t-shirt top (and back) that I pieced for Out of the Box was delivered to Susan on Wednesday and I ran some shopping errands along the way to Boaz (AL) for stuff I cannot find here in town. I attended the JOY quilt guild meeting in nearby Jacksonville for the first time in about two years time on Thursday morning. In between, I dabbled with some various hobbies. Not completing anything nor will I for a while at this rate. But that's okay with me as I won't get bored with it. I doubt I am the only one who works like this either.

I have been working on a cardigan knitted from the neck down occasionally. (Pattern is from Knitting Pure and Simple) I felt like knitting so pulled it out the other day and finish up the ribbing I had decided to substitute at the bottom. I have made my sweater significantly longer that suggested as I want it to cover a longer top that I own. The next day I picked up the first of the set aside sleeve stitches and worked a bit on that before setting it aside. You start off with a small cord on circular needles and as you decrease the sleeve width you switch over to double points in two different sizes. I am used to double points from making DJ sets of golf club covers over the years and of course, all kinds of mittens. It's fun and mindless knitting except for watching for the evenly spaced decrease rows.

I did a bit of the "Here Comes Santa" block from Bird Brain Designs at the quilt meeting making some progress on the first block that I have traced off. I have decided NOT to use the perle cotton that came with the kit however as it just looked too thick to me. I was not pleased in the spots that called for finer detail work so switched to two strands of DMC floss. Good 'ol 498. Susan had some in stock since they have cross stitch and framing at the shop in addition to the long arm quilting and some fabrics.

I should tell you that a woman at the meeting had been given a bunch of books, magazines and even some quilt tops and blocks and brought those to share with. I was busy stitching but my friend Marilyn snagged a couple of the quilt tops. One she will re-vamp as a donation top and the other she handed me as she knows how I love feed sack stuff. Later, as I was chatting with the woman who had brought the things I saw someone holding up a blue quilt top and then someone pointing in my direction. Then heading my direction, LOL and handing me the quilt top. I think the person SHE had been chatting with told her that our quilt group could probably use it.

And, for a couple days this week I was machine quilting on this Railroad Crossing top. My mom pieced it and I brought it back with me when DJ and I were "home" visiting in June. The quilt will be going to DJ--maybe for Christmas or our anniversary in late January. I have the plain blocks marked with a small motif to hand quilt--what I was doing at the last quilt meeting actually. All the blocks are locked in and I have maybe a third of the bands stitched in the ditch. The borders are done as of yesterday morning. My goal was to get as many pins out of there as I could so it would be easier to maneuver for the hand quilting though I am itching to get started on that part.

One of the Belles wants me to show her how to hand quilt so if I have not started the hand work by then, I will definitely take with me to the meeting on Tuesday. Oops, that reminds me to switch some fabric over from the washer to dryer. I said I would mark off a design for her to practice on but needed to wash some muslin to do that. That part is easy--it is the fabric pressing that I don't look forward to. UGH--ironing!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of talking with Norma on the phone. We email and chat all the time but what a treat to hear her voice! The weirdest thing was a local friend had called to tell me about some feed sacks she had gotten from a friend of hers that does estate sales and deals in antiques. (She will sell them to any of the Belles that wants them at the price she paid for them. You know I will have to check these out!) Had Judy NOT called me on my cell phone I would have missed the call. I am sure that Norma would have just tried again a little later if her schedule permitted.

That's about it for here---scanning some recipe books for some inspiration and looking for a few recipes that are filed in who knows which notebook as it is about time to go grocery shopping. I still want to do the toaster cover and other appliance covers soon. When Norma gets back we have talked about tackling Atkinson's Designs Cheese and Crackers pattern. I didn't even show you the box that my mom packed up that was leftover from her town's raffle quilt that used this same pattern! I should be looking at these patterns in a little more detail to see how much background fabric, etc is needed to make this happen.

Hope you all are having a good weekend in whatever you found to dabble in-----