So many hobbies!

This is for Lucia

Six more quarts

Today was a beautiful day for picking.  Not too warm, no humidity... it was great.  It's much more fun to go with a friend.  Alice and I was talking so much, it didn't feel like we were out there for three hours.  The bushes were vicious, however, and both Alice and I have scratches all over our arms.

The plan was to work on the quilt but it didn't happen.  Between napping, working on more boxes, a party at a friends and raspberries, there wasn't time for quilting.  I've got two boxes about halfway done but I need more elastic before I can complete them.  This is the third box from last week:

Sorry I've been away

I haven't been doing much besides sewing spindle boxes.  My only break was Sunday morning when I picked 6 quarts of raspberries.  I've also been dealing with the damn funk that keeps creeping back and when that happens, I never feel like I have anything interesting to say.  Of course, all I've been doing lately is sewing boxes, boxes, boxes, which doesn't make for interesting blog fodder anyway.  I managed to finish 3 boxes over the weekend except for sewing on the bottons.  Two are now completed and up in my Etsy shop but the third had one of the button loops come out and needs to be resewn.  These are the two completed boxes:

 

 

I've promised myself that time will be spent working on the quilt this weekend.  All work and no play if you know what I mean.  And there might be more raspberry picking.

Patent?

I just looked into what it would take to get a patent for my spindle boxes.  Yikes!  Legalzoom.com was recommended to me so I checked out their website.  Even discounted, it would cost me $1130 to file for a patent.  Damn!  Owning a patent would be so very cool but there's no way I can toss out more than $1100 for one.  Jeez!  Now I'm all disappointed.

First, a thank you...

and an apology.  Val was wonderful and sent me some lovely fabric scraps, one of which I'm using in my quilt.  Thank you so much, Val, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to say so.   You rock!

 

These are the fabrics I'm using.  (The one from Val is second from the top.)  I realized pretty quick that I needed more variety than just creamcicle orange.   I added deeper and brighter oranges.  I'm pretty happy with the variety.  I spent all Saturday sewing strips of white to each rectangle and cutting out each unit.  I somehow ended up with 65 units when I really need 88.  Apparently, I really suck at the planning and counting part of making a quilt. 

 

Monday night, a few of us met at a friend's for homemade pizza.  One of the girls, Julie, is a henna artist and she did this dragon on my back.  After the henna dried, she put some kind of medical tape over it.  The henna had to stay on as long as possible so I slept with it on and washed it off in the shower this morning.  Henna is a permanent dye but it fades after a while with the natural sloughing of the skin.  I love it.

More for quilt #2

 

This is my most recent order from The Fabric Shack.  The one on the far right looks gold but it's really orange.  I'm not sure about the 2nd and 3rd from the left.  Too much red?  Too much gold?  Not sure.  I'm working a half day tomorrow and I'll be coming home to start cutting for the quilt.

The weekend is happily unplanned.  Saturday morning I'm picking raspberries but I have nothing else until Labor Day.  I might see a movie.  I'll definitely be spending a lot of time on the couch reading a book I just got.  The rest of the time, I'll be working on the quilt, constructing spindle boxes and maybe dyeing some roving.

What are your plans for the long weekend?

Nothing too exciting

I'm sorry to say I haven't been doing anything terribly interesting.  I've been sewing spindle boxes and cutting out the components for more.  Much I'd like to, I haven't started on my next quilt.  I finished two spindle boxes last night and I've just put them up in my Etsy store.

 

This one was commissioned by Pat.

 

And this one is for anyone who wants it.  More will be coming.

Random Friday

1. Guys who drive Corvette convertibles should not be driving 10 mph under the speed limit!
2. Due to a misspent youth, I know all the words and can sing the song Sir Robin's minstrels sang in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
3. Did you know you can sing nearly all of Emily Dickinson's poems to "The Yellow Rose of Texas?"  Try it.
4. August in Michigan is supposed to be hot, sunny and humid, not rainy, cold and damp.  We're getting gypped out of a sunny, warm end of the summer.  It's supposed to rain all weekend.  We are not amused.
5. This has been the worst growing season I've seen in a long time.  My tomatoes have had green fruit for over a month.  They're not ripening.  My zucchini gave me 5 or 6 zukes and between going to work one day and coming home in the evening, died.  Only the beans were happy this summer.
6. It's possible that, in addition to being a Magpie in a former life, I was also a squirrel.  I'm really into stash building to prepare for lean times.  That might also explain my compulsive need to can and freeze summer produce.
7. When it's rainy, cold and dreary outside, all I want to do is stay inside, turn all the lights on and either knit and watch movies, work on a quilt, or bake something sweet and yummy.  Possibly all of the above.

The new girl

 

Here she is.  We had a fun evening sewing spindle boxes.  The sewing store people fixed my problems.  Turns out I didn't have the bobbin threaded quite right and I needed a stronger needle for the many layers I was sewing through.  Actually, I'll be using three different needles when sewing the spindle boxes, each one stronger than the previous one.  You can see one of them laying next to the front right corner of the machine.

I'm itching to start another quilt top.  I've been collecting orange fabric from the Fabric Shack and my local quilt store.  I'm going with more of a creamsicle instead of pumpkin.  Anyone got any scraps to share?  I'll be cutting 4.5" squares.  I may or may not have ordered a quilting book, I'm not saying one way or another since it will only prove that I'm completely nuts for taking on yet another hobby. 

Did I tell you that I've rented a booth at the Fiber Expo in October?  Between now and then, I have to make a whole bunch of spindle boxes and dye up as much roving as I can.  I'm saving the roving for cooler weather so I don't roast in my own house.  Any suggestions or requests for colorways?

Triumphs and tribulations

The good news is, I finished the quilt top:

 

And made some peach salsa:

 

I ran out of steam before I got to the peach BBQ sauce.  I plan on picking up more peaches this week so hopefully I'll get to it next weekend.  And maybe some peach jam.  The rest of this round of peaches and the next round will go into the freezer.

The bad news is my new sewing machine (a Viking Emerald 118) doesn't seem to be handling the multiple layers of my spindle boxes.  I'm getting some looping on the back side of the fabric and the bobbin thread is being pulled to the front side.  None of that happens when it's only sewing through two layers of fabric.  I'm going to be in trouble if I have to buy a more expensive machine to get one that will go through multiple layers.  And really ticked off.  Some time this week I'll be hauling it in to the store to see what can be done.  My after work hours are rapidly filling up.  Again.