Goodies and giveaway

It's been very windy lately. I had my sewing room window open, and somehow my iron blew over and all the water fell out and was sewing my sewing table. Talk about a heart attack moment! Thankfully, I have proof below that my machine still works just fine. ;)

The butterfly block is for my quilt guild's blotto. Maybe I'll win! I'll find out tomorrow.


A couple weeks ago I won $100 from the Superior Threads blog. Yeah! That place with lots and lots of cool thread. :)

Admittedly... $100 doesn't go very far. The two big cones of thread were $25 each. Then the 5 King Tut spools on the left was another $25. Just a few clicks, I had already spent $75! I think the best investment is the black cone stand. It has great heft to it and will last me probably the rest of my life.


I also order several L size bobbins... uh oh.

The top is my normal Bernina bobbin, the bottom is one of their SuperBobs. I don't think it's gonna fit. Does this mean I have M style bobbins? I'm really confused now.


Last week I was asking for some help in finding some more Sweet by Urban Chicks fabric - with decent shipping to boot. Bingo Bonnie pointed me to an esty member, and it was pretty much what I had in mind! They even threw in an extra fat quarter for free and my whole total was less than $11.

The FQ is a Mary Engelbreit fabric by Moda... and frankly, I don't like it. :P It's too red for me. So! If you want it, just leave a comment and I'll draw a name on Thursday or so.

Good luck!
Leah

Fabric source?

Wow, it's been an overwhelming week. Thankfully things are back on an upward swing and calming down.


Today was my quilting get together, and I figured I'd start cutting into this Honey Bun that I won from Shadywood Quilts several weeks ago. I'm going to do a Chinese Coin, with the off-white fabric for the plain rows.

I managed to cut up all the fabric while at my friend's house. On the way home I decided to swing by a quilt shop to pick up another yard of Moda's "Sweet" from Urban Chicks for the binding. I was in for a bit of surprise! The shop had seriously downsized, and largely carried Thimbleberries. Ok, off to the other quilt shop in my little town. Much bigger place, should have better luck, right? Nope! They didn't carry "Sweet" either.

And I'm really, really, really sure Walmart wouldn't have it either. ;) Now I'm out of quilt shops to check - the next closest one is about 80 miles away - it'd be $20 in gas for one yard! Which would make it like $30/yard. Yeouch!

So, can somebody direct me to an online shop with the cheapest shipping for 1 yard of fabric? Fat Quarter Shop wants $5 for shipping... is there anything cheaper out there? I would really think that one could ship a yard of fabric for less than $2 First Class.

Now I just have to find my sewing machine before I can start piecing. I did say something about the past week being overwhelming, right? :P

Leah

Ruthless

Not much quilting going on recently. Instead, I've started the packing process.

All the fabric on the wire shelves are crammed into rubbermaid bins. I'm pretty sure I won't find time to use it all up before May. :) There's another bin waiting for the hand dyes to fill it up.

I'm also being pretty ruthless in my non-quilty packing, in small bites. I think I've gotten rid of as much stuff as I've packed. A towering pile of stuff to the thrift store, several bags trashed and gone.

And surprisingly, I've let go a lot of books recently. Enough to earn me over $90 in store credit at the local entertainment store. The rest went off to my library's bookstore.

Still have lots to go, but I've got a very happy husband cheering me on. :)

Leah

Slogging through

I've seem to hit a bit of a hump in my quilting these days. Don't know why, usually the fix is quite simple. Like a new rotary blade or such. Oh yeah, there's some work being done on our internet and that's kept me offline quite a bit! Don't like it... but the kitchen is sure clean. ;)


Bear's Paw for Judy's Quilt Along. Yes, I'm being a tease and not showing the other paw colors.

I did have a last minute change on my pink pair. I felt that I selected too dark of a pink/red and found some replacements to help it blend better with the rest of the quilt.


In other news, my mom finally got my parents plumbing company set up!

It's a pretty big deal because they've registered the domain over 5 years ago, site address is plastered onto their trucks, but they never created anything until now.

Good job Mom! It's better than anything I churned up for my HTML class back in my college days. :)

Leah

Apartment hunting

After feeling discouraged about my husband's school problems, I lost the desire to work on finding us a cheaper place for a few weeks. But this week I found a renewed kick, and stopped by 10 apartments asking for their rates and floor plans.

The 9th apartment I stopped by was the one that really caught my husband's eye. I completely missed it in my weary state, but all utilities are paid! And their 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom is 100 square feet bigger than our current apartment, but would save us around $150-$200/month.

So we set up an appointment for a tour, and I'm quite pleased with the interior. Like, there's a kitchen window - I never had a kitchen window in any of my apartments.

They also offer gas stove (and water heater), which put my husband into big grins. Cooking with electric is a pain, and we go all crazy at my parents house with their 5-burner gas stove. They don't mind, it's kinda like having a chef for a few weeks. ;)


Something worth doing back flips over: a pantry!

I absolutely need a pantry. Currently I've turned our second bathroom into a storage room. It's very inefficient, but yay, don't have to clean that toilet. :P


The living room is nice and large, connects to a patio/balcony. If we were to get a 1 bedroom unit, my quilting would go into the living room.

We'd also wedge in our dining table, right about where I was standing in that picture.


And here's the really big bedroom! Full size closet (we have half size for our clothes right now), plenty of room for a bed and my husband's computer set up.

There's also a full sized bathroom and a linen closet. I don't have a linen closet right now, it just get stuffed into the bottom of our closet.

But... we're seriously considering getting a 2 bedroom apartment. Even with the extra cost, we'd still save $40-90/month to what we're currently paying. Plus, a 2 bedroom unit is more likely to become available than a 1 bedroom. And we can set the AC to any temp we want. We HAVE to do 82 here, or else our electric bill will be over $200. Oh yeah, the 2 bedroom is 300 more square feet than what we have right now.

There was some concern about the neighborhood, but after asking around a bit and talking to a few people, it sounds just as safe as where I am now. Probably helps that it's less than a mile away from the town's police station. ;)

That's what I've been up to! The move won't happen until late May or so... but the packing begins NOW! :)

Leah

It's a HST!

It's elementary, my dear Watson... it's a half-square triangle for Judy's Quilt Along project!

Uh yeah, it's also a single HST, and Judy called for 192 of them. But she said she wouldn't count them!! ;) Actually, I just can't stand the idea of slaving in front of the iron any more. It got to over 80 degrees here, and we had to throw out our filtered water pitcher because it got a crack in the bottom. So I'm hot and dehydrated, but trying to fix both by drinking icy water.


It hasn't been a great day. A couple of my husband's identity numbers have been compromised. We got introduced to the world of credit freeze and replacing driver's license. Gotta keep my husband's credit score in good shape so we can buy a house someday.

Top of it all, my husband's grandmother was found passed out and in convulsions yesterday. Given that it got to over 90 degrees in her town, I'm willing to bet she's severely dehydrated. You can't live on alcohol alone, no matter how hard she tries!!

Well, this week can only get better from here. :)

Leah