Another new toy

We had the grandkids (of the human kind) over last Friday evening.  Granddad is clever in that a swim/splash in the tiny pool counts as a bath after dinner, so cleansed they were and loved it being done.

Then on SaturdayI got word that my latest new toy arrived and we desperately needed to make space for this but first I had to go shopping. Our local quilting guild (I am not affiliated) has a quarterly meeting and I do support one of the vendors from another city.  So I placed my order for Best Press and quickly went to fetch it and while there got some serrated scissors by Apliquick too.

Back home hubby and my son, who just came to fetch the grand kids, moved furniture from one guestroom to another (or totally out of the house) like crazy and I had to start washing all the bedding.  Then ripping the carpet from the floor followed and it was interesting to see the manufactured date on the back of the carpet. 19 July 1983.  This carpet is 8 years older than my daughter and it wore well.

After discovering a huge crack in the sub-floor hubby fixed it and smoothed it with self-levelling screed.  Ha! I sound so intelligent using daily technical terms used in our flooring business.

Then he fitted luxury vinyl tiles in a colour I absolutely adore.  A mix of greys and brown so anything goes.

Time to put my quilt art up the wall.

Finally home but still boxed and the dealer was rather strict and we were told not to even attempt to set it up ourselves, but after convincing him that my hubby is really good, we got the go-ahead.

A week later and I have my new toy assembled in a newly created play-area and I am ready for my first lesson on Monday.

Magnolia Mystery – 3

Some days are diamonds and some just plain hectic.Yesterday was one of those hectic ones.  I knew I had to take MIL to get her monthly prescription, so parrot had to go to the office with hubby but I also bought MIL groceries with some stuff in the refrigerator and these needed to be packed before I left. So we got up and most went according to plan, got back to the office and started my routine which was somewhat disrupted in that hubby planned to leave on a business trip and then the days start slightly more uncontrolled than others but we got going, organized, planned, divided monies due to temporary workers and what not and just as things calmed down slightly, it hit me!.... poor Struis, a rescue dove, was all forgotten in the cupboard where he sleeps at night, alone in the dark without food or water.  There and then packed up, I knew MIL too would soon phone for me to fetch her again, so I called it a day and simply came home to rescue Struis from the cupboard and then got going with my quilting. (I didn’t have to cook dinner seeing that hubby was out of town!)

Even though I had way too much wine when I started this part of the mystery I managed to finish it.  I now have 32 full flower units, 4 left facing partial flower units and 4 right facing partial flower units.  This keeps me guessing.

Eye of the Storm – 2

I continued with this baby and it kept me rather busy.

At this stage I had no clue to where I was supposed to be going but figured I am not that good a cook but if I followed a recipe to the T, it usually works, so I might as well do it with a quilt pattern.  This was not even half way through cross cutting my strip sets.

I often read about quilters referring to their time in the sewing room as “mindless stitching” but heck for this quilt I had to have my wits about me all the time….. nothing mindless about this one and the cat did not help much. This is only block 1 of 42 with this one only packed, not even sewn.

How much wine is too much?

I got the next (number unknown…. I’ve worked really hard, it is hot, I am dead tired and sip wine to keep hydrated) clue to my mystery (name now eludes me…. wine the problem too?) and I started sewing what should be a flower block.   I got no less than 7 of these (not sure why I can remember this number though)

Now would you believe me, I unpicked all 7, re-stitched, scolded myself, vowed to not drink wine when quilting before it hit me…… simply swap or turn the bloomin sections you fool.  It should look like this.

So this post is directed to “dear me”…… this is what should be done when you had too much wine.  Maybe I should just continue tomorrow.

Owl – 4

With my painted bird done I tackled the Owl, another one of those projects that may never disappear from one of my design walls if I didn’t put serious effort into finishing it.  Chicken’s parent came to pick her up and it was absolutely wonderful knowing I could walk anywhere in my house without stepping into something unwanted.

I had a pretty busy day yesterday with me joining a friend for a back and neck massage which turned out rather mediocre.  A new beauty salon opened and we suspect we were used as guinea pigs for students but then it was so cheap, we should not complain.

Then another friend was in town after a trip to New Zealand and she popped in and gave me a lovely gift of fabric.  Nice to have friends thinking of you when they travel.

This is how far I got with my owl.