I am a Winner, You Could Be Too

One of the Internet contests I participate in is the FabShopHop, where you visit the participating on-line quilt shops, and find the shop hop bunny. When you find the required number of bunnies, you're entered in the grand prize drawings. You're also entered in a drawing for a $10 gift certificate from each of the shops you visit.

I don't know how many people do this, but I know my odds of winning one of the big prizes are very very slim; however, I have fun doing playing along. During January's hop I didn't have time to play much, remember work was crazy, I even worked through lunch most days.

Needless to say, I was surprised when I got the email the other day saying I'd won a $10 certificate from one of the January shops. I went to that shop and started poking around trying to decide what I might like to get with my $10.

I soon discovered the shop owner's style in fabric selection doesn't appeal to me.

It might appeal to you. That's why I decided I would give away my certificate.

The fine print:
Leave me a comment here, on the blog, FB comments won't count.
I'll pick a winner next Monday 3/1/10.
Judging is at the sole discretion of the blog author.
The certificate is only good at Bayside Quilting until 3/31/10.

More about the Weekend

Saturday afternoon I took Kevin to the barber shop for a haircut. I'd never gone in there on the weekend before, so I was a little unfamiliar with the procedure when almost every waiting area chair is taken. Usually I take him on a weekday evening when there is no or very little wait. I wasn't raised on the barber shop culture, being a girl and all. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about taking Kevin for a haircut, I just don't know those unspoken rules about waiting and whose turn it is.

A barber will finish with a client and call out "can I help someone," or "who's next?" For a second no one moves. I see all these people waiting, but no one is getting up. I look around, Kevin can't be next, we just got there, surely someone will get up. The barber calls again and someone does take his chair. I settle back and occupy myself with solitaire on my phone. Kevin is content watching the show. He learns by watching so sitting still in a barber chair is nothing new, he's a pro. Getting him to verbalize what he wants is a whole other ball game.

There's another woman who is jabbering a lot to her grandson's barber and to whomever will listen to her. I focus on my solitaire. A couple more chairs open up and get taken. I figure out some clients are waiting for specific cutters, others, like us, don't care. Another chair opens and no one moves and I guess it's Kevin's turn.

How much do you tip on a $14 haircut?

Fern skated at the Bowie Valentine Invitational Competition on Sunday. She participated in three events, her technical program, solo compulsories and with the large production team.

I thought she did a good job but was a little wobbly during her technical program, and didn't hold her spirals very long (skating backward on one foot, other leg parallel to the ice). I've seen her skate better in practice so I wasn't surprised when she got forth out of four skaters, disappointed, yes, but not surprised.

Then she did her compulsories. I thought she did great and videoed her with my phone. After she was done I asked her if she wanted to see the video. "No Mom, I was just there." I got a completely opposite response when I offered it to her coach. She studied it and beamed about how long the spirals were and that her sit-spin had eight revolutions. There was some kind of mix-up when it was time to award the medals for her event so we had to wait much too long to find out.

The large group event, the production team went well. I'd not seen it yet so I got to see it with a fresh eye. It is a 4-minute program where about 30 skaters do routines to songs with a jungle theme. Bowie's competition was the team from Piney Orchard. Their show had a "Family Game Night" theme and it was very cute and well done. At awards time, Piney got second, and Bowie took first.

Then, they got around to awarding the medals for the compulsory events. Fern got first place out of three skaters. Needless to say, I was just thrilled.


 

Another baby quilt

Friday I posted about the baby boom in my office and the quilts I'm making. This is the top for the boy due next month. I got the top for the girl finished and basted over the weekend too. Now I just need to quilt and bind them, but I'm not stressing about it. I'll just present them in their current state at the shower on Wednesday. I'm sure the dads will be happy anyway.

At the barber shop on a Saturday

A New Quilt

I work with mostly guys in my office, young guys. Well, younger than I am. Young fertile guys.

Two babies are due next month and one in June. And I've promised baby quilts. Two boys and a girl. This one is for the girl. It needs one more border strip at the bottom, then quilting. The group baby shower is next Wednesday. Do you think I can get them done? I've already decided to not work on the June's baby quilt until after our guild's show since I still need to finish the quilt for that but I should be able to knock out two simple pieces quickly.

Oh, but wait, Fern's ice skating competition is Sunday and I have no idea what time she's on the ice. Got to find that out. Kevin skis on Sunday, too. Maybe I'll be able to sew on binding while I wait for her to perform. If I get that far with the quilts. (OK, this just in, she is scheduled to skate her freestyle program at 12:30 ±10 minutes; and her compulsories at 3:00 ±10 minutes. Please come by to watch.)

I hope these guys in my office are blessed with great kids as I have been.

The top is quilted

This is the picture of the quilt top before I started quilting it. I'm showing this instead of one of the current state of the quilt because I haven't taken a picture of it yet.

Last night I finished quilting the top and trimmed the edges. Tonight I'll cut the binding and start the long process of sewing the binding on.

I still need to get the quilt that will actually be in the quilt show next month finished, but I'm so close to getting this one done, I want closure on it.

More progress from the retreat

I played with a new technique of dyeing fabrics a la Amy Johnston. I'll describe it more when I don't have to tap it out on the phone.

Progress at the quilt retreat

I've had this quilt forever and got to work on it this weekend. It's almost done, I just need to quilt the last border and bind it.

Ta-da!

A Little Snow: a view of the back porch

Snow Day

I have finished my stack of badge sewing so now I can concentrate on fun things, like quilting.

The kids were off yesterday because of snow and I stayed home with them. I got my sewing room straightened up a bit and got the floor vacuumed.

Our quilting bee is doing an exchange this year where we choose our fabrics, then pass them around to members to make the next block in the pattern so in the end, we'll have a set of blocks made by our fellow members. We're using Big Horn Quilts' Beige Behemoth pattern.

I dyed all that fabric a couple weeks ago for this project and was anxious to pass it on. Frankly, I was tired of looking at it. To my dismay, we are to make the first block ourselves with our fabrics, thus setting the tone for the entire quilt. I didn't want that responsibility. I needed distance from all that fabric I just spent hours and hours dying.

That was two weeks ago. It took that long to work through the paid sewing obligation. So, yesterday I was able to start on the exchange blocks without much anxiety. The 20" block is made up of eight components, two of which I got done.

We're due for 12-24 more inches of snow tomorrow so it looks like I'll have plenty of time to work on the rest over the weekend.

I'll try to upload a picture from the camera later since I still can't find the memory card reader for unloading the photos from my camera.


 

Weekend Round-up, Among OtherThings

I'm not usually one of those moms that dash off to the ER at the sight of blood, but when the sight of blood wasn't ending, I took The Boy in. I knew there was nothing to stitch up, since the edge of his left index finger was gone, but I knew I couldn't stop the bleeding by myself. He was cutting salami.

Dan was in Tampa for the weekend golfing with his friends.

I did a lot of laundry this weekend. The last load is in the dryer right now. It's the "everything else" load. Usually I pick through what is on the floor of the laundry room to make a load of like items, darks, pastels, colors, whites, towels. The "everything else" load is the stuff that falls through, the stuff that doesn't pass muster on previous sorting rounds. It's the load you hate to put away because it's usually a bunch of mismatched socks and shirts that are too small for your youngest child. You know. I'll have that load waiting for me tonight. Oh joy.

Lost is back tomorrow night after a nine-month hiatus. I gotta make sure the DVRs are set. Yes, both of them. I started a Lost marathon yesterday by rewatching season 5. This interrupted a Lois & Clark season 1 marathon and ended up being interrupted by watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days because we wanted to send it back to Netflix.

I found Season 1 of Lois and Clark on eBay for The Girl (and myself!) because I enjoyed it 16 years ago and thought she might like it, too. "Like it" turned out to be an understatement. She loves it and thinks Dean Cain is wonderful, gorgeous, and very good-looking. He was quite yummy in that show, wasn't he? I found Season 2 on eBay and she had that watched in a heartbeat. Now she's dying to have Seasons 3 and 4, but I can't find them as cheaply as I found 1 & 2 and I'm not willing to pay $61 per season at Borders, or even $40 at Amazon. She'll get her homework done and I'll keep looking for bargains online.

I've had 21 Girl Scout vests to work on this month. I didn't think my stack would ever diminish, but it's down and I now have only four to go, then it's back to personal sewing/quilting. Yay.

The quilt retreat is coming up at the end of next week so I've made a list of projects to take with me. It's a small list, only ten or twelve things. Sheesh. I probably ought to take my ritalin with me so I can stay focused and not get overwhelmed. And get stuff done. There are three guys in my office whose wives are due with babies and I've promised them all baby quilts. Silly me. The nice thing about baby quilts is that you can make them small and no one will complain.

I ordered a portable sewing machine table with some birthday and badge-sewing money. It should be here in time for the retreat. This new table will make it easier to do machine quilting at retreat, where it was impossible before because the table was not flush with the bed of the sewing machine.

Since I haven't had a proper blog post in a while, I'd better stop here. I can't give away all my secrets at once, and, I still have real work to do even though the crush is (almost) past.



 

Almost

I know I owe a real post, life at work is getting almost back to normal. Which means I can take time to write said post.

In the mean time, visit this site and look at these adorable pockets!


 

Folded Rainbows

Work is still crazy-busy, and I still can't find my card reader so this is from my phone of 54 of the 71 pieces of fabric I dyed over the weekend.

To-Do List

Today, I'm breathing.

The other day my boss heard me exhale. It was one of those long exhales at the end of a short encounter with him and my mind was reeling from all I had to do and ws making mental lists of things I had to accomplish pronto. We are mailing out a survey on the 26th and I've been working on validations and fixes non-stop for several weeks.

Our sponsor is known for taking their time on things despite the firm mail-out date, for example, we just got the final form last week. So my boss tells me I wasn't allowed to breath yet, had to wait until mail-out. Yesterday we pushed the survey out to the public server so the sponsor can do their testing. (I hope they know they don't have until March.) So, today I can breathe a bit until the testing results come back to me and I have another list of things to do.

I've been working through a pile of Girl Scout vests in my spare time. I've gotten five done in the last week or so, but the pile isn't diminishing any. I hate sewing those badges on when there's not a lot of room left for them. I raised my rates again to $40 so the workload is more palatable.

There should be a package on my porch right now for me (aren't tracking numbers and the Internet the greatest?) containing a new bolt of muslin to dye and two new dyes. I plan on dyeing a slew of fabric this weekend so it'll be ready for our bee's next exchange project next Wednesday. I'll post pictures of my dyeing adventures. If I can find my card reader, that is.

I was rooting through old photos and found this one from 2003. Enjoy.

To hold you over

I'm still alive.

Work is still crazy-busy. I wish I could blog more. Someday...

Here is a picture of my newly re-done sewing room.

If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see some quilt blocks I've been working on. Look in the mirror on the wall.

 

Yesterday's Post

Work is crazy-busy. I posted the picture below yesterday, fully intending on writing a description, but never got around to it.

On new years day my husband's (best?) friend and his wife came to hang out with us for several hours. They live in Alabama so Sue had not seen my quilts before and I gave her a mini trunk show. I showed her the quilt I made last year for my cousin and her new husband (that I still haven't mailed off yet!). Sue loved it and I told her how easy it was, we can make the top in less than two hours. Then I pointed her to my stash and told her to pick out four fabrics.

The center of the top was assembled by the time they had to leave. Sue loved it, but I realized later we'd arranged the pieces incorrectly for full impact of the pattern. It was one of those situations where I knew I'd never be happy if I just left it, I had to redo it even though Sue would have never known. So I spent the next several days picking it apart and resewing. I'm glad I did, I think it looks great now, especially with the two borders I added.

The picture below is of the finished quilt top, basted and ready to quilt. And if Sue ever reads my blog, she'll get to see how it's coming along.



PS, Greeny, I'll make a wall-hanging for you with this same graphic design. Just go to your local quilt shop, pick out four fat quarters that you like together that have a good mix of texture and contrast, (the shop gals will help you with 'fat quarters') then pick out one more, either another one of the first four or a new one for the border, and send them to me. I'll send back (sometime this decade) a quilted wall-hanging. Deal?

The Year in Review

I still haven't mastered the whole idea of blogging from home, it just seems like it's part of my warm-up routine here at the office, so here is where I blog. And since I haven't been to the office in a while because of the holiday and snow days, that explains why I haven't posted since last Tuesday. Sorry.

Let's review 2009, shall we? For starters, here are the first line(s) of the first posts from each month. (Edited for clarity and brevity.) Current comments are in this color.

January 2:
Here is the first line or two from the first post of each month for 2008. It's fun to look back and see what was blog-worthy. Sound familiar? I stole this post idea from last year.

February 3:
This weekend I finished 12 scout vests. I often use a glue stick to hold the patches down while I sew them. I learned this weekend there is a window during which I need to sew after I glue, too soon and they're not stuck enough and too long and the glue is completely dry and the patches peel right up. I went through 3 glue sticks on 9 of the vests. Good thing I buy in bulk. It's good I get paid to do these vests, I'd hate it otherwise.

March 3:
I'm back to work today, which means I can blog. For some reason I just don't blog from home much. Which is where I was yesterday, home. The schools were closed because of the snow storm that went through Sunday night. See, back in March I felt the same way as I do now.

April 1:
Back on Thursday, I ordered some Smashbox goodies. The order was to be filled by the personal shopping lady at the Annapolis Norstroms. She said she'd mail out the orders on Friday and since it's a short jaunt from the big Annapple to Bowie, I thought I should get my package on Saturday, Monday at the latest, right? I ended up returning many of those items. Left to my own devices, I just didn't like them much.

May 1:
I'm sitting in a classroom in Rockville, MD class now waiting for the lecture to start. The rest of the class is finishing up an exercise my class partner and I finished yesterday. I'm so smart.

June 1:
I was first introduced to the mobile fraternity when I was in college. A friend of the husband-to-be of a friend drove a Saab. Another boring post, obviously.

July 6:
I'm back from vacation.
I'll be posting a review of our hotel soon. I came back to work to 775 unread mail messages that I'll have to work my way through. This was the vacation to Punta Cana with the hubby.

August 3:
I'm back from vacation.
I'm trying to tame the laundry beast.
659 new email messages were waiting for me at work. Another vacation? Oh, yeah, this one was to the beach with the family.

September 2:
My weekend went great until I stopped doing things on my to-do list.

October 5:
I played a lot of golf this weekend, 18 holes with Dan at Bowie CC and 18 with Mark and AM at Glen Dale. I normally don't to play so much in a month, much less a weekend. Both times I was lousy on the front nine and much better on the back: 64/51 & 63/50. or something like that. Can't wait for this winter to end, and these winds, sheesh, can't wait for golf weather.

Two posts from November 2:
I woke from a dream the other morning where Bryan Voltaggio was in my kitchen.
and
I found myself asking my husband to delete the mouse in the mousetrap.
In my mind, Bryan is still the better looking Voltaggio brother and was the best looking chef on the show; and, I haven't seen any mouse evidence since Georgia fixed the water damage/hole in the wall. Yay!

December 2 :
I got a replacement iPhone recently, right before the warranty expired. For some reason when I synced it back to the computer, the passwords didn't get restored. I have three email accounts that I can read on my phone. Evidently, the passwords are all different and I cannot remember one of the three. I should probably keep a list of what I've tried so I won't continue to torture myself with old guesses. This is still true. It's been a month now and I still haven't remembered my password to that third email account.

Other things in Review

I posted about 149 times, not very many, I'll have to work on posting more. I logged about 625 miles on my walkometer with an average speed of 3.9 mph. That doesn't include the miles I walked when the battery was dead. I did about thirty-thousand loads of laundry and still have thirteen-thousand unmatched socks. Ok, not really, but it seems like it.

Code of the Day

I haven't been able to post a lot because I've been working at work (and getting stuff done). To prove this point, here is my code that makes validating ±500 fields a lot easier. Don't get me started on why this is necessary in the first place when I should be able to use built-in checks. Suffice it to say, the guy is an idiot.

sub ah2_valid
{
my ( $c ) = @_;
my %errors;
my $data = $c->stash->{form}->get_values;
$c->log->info("***  ah2_valid  ******");
foreach my $k (keys %{$c->req->body_params})
{
next unless $k =~ /^ah2/;
int_comma_err($data->{$k},\%errors,'ah2') if $data->{$k};
#print STDERR $c->req->body_params->{$k} . "\n";
}
return _set_custom_errors( $c , %errors ) ? 0: 's2/ag' ;
}

Happy New Year, if I don't get back here before Friday.

Work at Dawn

I got to the office at 6:30 this morning. As you know I love time-lapse movies so I set up my camera. This is what I got until the battery died.