This little porker

The kids loved their easter bunnies - even my nephew (he's 10) who I thought for sure would poo poo them as kid stuff!  That revived my stuffie-making mojo - that and the fact that my SIL told me that Jude, the youngest nephew, only has girl stuffed things because they've gotten passed down from his sisters.  Poor little guy.  So I had an excuse to make this little pig that I've been dying to make from the Sew Me, Love Me book.  

Because I'm a bad aunt, and because there are 5 nieces and nephews, I can't ever remember when their birthdays are - but whenever Jude's comes around, I'll be ready!  

The things you do after

Keep sewing.  It's where Stella always was right next to me - sitting on my chest licking my face while I'd try to read, or putting her forehead on my cheek while I tried to sew.  It's hard to not have here there, but I don't want to avoid it because she's not.  I just tell myself that's the room where I have a lot of memories.

We took her to the emergency vet on Wednesday - maybe it should have been Tuesday night, but you never really know that until Wednesday morning, do you?  I still wake up crying.

I made this to hang over the chair we always sat in to read each evening.

 Ok, I realize that I use the term "made" pretty loosely when I'm talking about machine embroidery - what I actually did is thread the machine and hit a couple buttons then walk away and start cutting pieces for my first Swoon block.  When it was finished, I put it in vintage wooden embroidery hoop.

This morning I finished putting together the pieces for the afore mentioned Swoon block.

It's HUGE - it's a 24" block, and the pattern has you make 9 of them for an 80x80 quilt.  I think these would make pretty cool pillows too.  I had to buy this pattern after seeing so many amazing blocks on Flicker.  It's all the same pattern, but it's amazing how different it looks when you play around with color (or rather value, I suppose) on the parts.  I'm pretty happy with this one, but I do feel that some of the white circles intersect with the white in the middle and it interrupts that sharp lines of the center star.  That's being a little too anal for me though, and I know that in the grand scheme of things, it'll look just fine.

I made a few wonky bento box blocks a few weeks ago, just because I love the block and wanted to do it.  Later I thought that maybe I could use them for a baby quilt - my manager's wife is pregnant.  They aren't finding out the sex so I wanted to make it kind of neutral.  The solid green is brighter in real life - more of a lime green.  The brown and gold dot fabric is some stuff I've been hording since Catherine and I went to the fabric store in Waynesville (how long ago was that Catherine??) and I decided finally that it needed to be used - what good does it do just sitting there?

My original block was made using this - and that's kind of where I pulled the green and brown from as well.

I like these colors a lot - and I'll certainly save them for something, but Billy convinced me that there may be too much pink for it to be potentially for a boy.  I think it's more acceptable for there to be no "girly" colors in a girl's quilt, than for there to be pink in a boy's quilt.  Oh, this picture shows the brightness of the lime green better too!  

the things you do when you're waiting

You know, people tell you, and you tell yourself, that you'll "know when it's time" but that kind of feels like a bunch of crap.  I don't know.  I feel like if I wait until I know, it'll be inhumanely late, but I also don't want to jump the gun.  My cat Stella, who the vets told me had kidneys that didn't want to work anymore about a month ago, isn't doing so well.  I went in to work on Monday after having a pretty crappy weekend involving a lot of crying, and I just couldn't do it - my head wasn't in the game and I was having trouble feeling like I cared as much as I needed to about stuff at work.  My manager, who I would not necessarily expect to be very sympathetic (he's usually mister all business), has been great - I told him that I had some vacation time and it suddenly felt to me like I'd rather take time and spend it with her while she was still here.  So I've been home with her - basically just hanging out in the sewing room while she tucks herself behind chairs (i think it's that animal instinct kicking in when they know it's about time and they need a place where predators won't find them) and sometimes totters out to get some water, but not food anymore.  I'm hoping that spending time with her now will help me when she's gone and I'm awfully thankful for the luxury of being able to do it.

So some of the things you do when you're just moping about in your sewing room, and watching, and waiting, is read short stories, listen to book reviews and This American Life on podcasts, and sew together a bunch of little felt rabbits.  5 for your nieces and nephews, and 2 for your manager's 8 month old twins to say thanks for letting me hang out with my ailing cat.

Easter bunnies from Japan

This is the first of 5 little bunnies I'm making for the nieces and nephews for Easter!  It's from Felt Friends from Japan, which is a book full of adorable japanese felt stuff (that explanation was probably unnecessary, given the descriptive title!)  I'm going to shred some green paper, put in in the bottom of the box, and pack the easter bunnies in there - I think that'd be a pretty cool parcel to get if I were a kid!  please - I'd love to get a parcel like that NOW!

on a less happy note - my ol' Stella is appearing to not be feeling so great anymore.  She was diagnosed with kidney failure about a month or so ago, and the subcutaneous water treatments made her feel much better for a while.  now she's to the point where she doesn't want to sit still and get water pumped into her - I really can't blame her.  Plus, she looks like it's painful to walk around - she walks like her muscles are stiff or something, and she really just wants to lay in a corner.  she'll let me hold her, but as soon as I put her down it's right back to the corner, or behind a chair.  I knew I'd have to deal with this again, but I'm just not ready for her to be gone.  not at all.

oh Stormy

I thought he'd keep truckin' along forever, but I suppose that not realistic.  He gave it a heck of a fight.  I learned that having a cat put to sleep is actually a very peaceful way to help your friend, and that I'm going to forever miss every wonderful thing about this guy.

new dresses for my neglected girls

It's been a while since the girls have gotten any new clothes and tonight I was kind of in the mood (or maybe just in the mood to avoid doing less fun stuff like cleaning the bathroom or mopping the kitchen floor!)

Remember that little kitty that I embroidered on my machine just to try it out the first day I got it?  I held on to it because I thought it might make a cute dress or skirt.  And I think it did.  This one called out for Emma - she's girlie.

 I wanted to try a different pattern, so I grabbed this one from Jam Fancy.  Unfortunately I either cut the arm holes a bit small, or I unintentionally made them smaller when I added the lace - whatever the case, it very tight on her shoulders, but since she's plastic and feels no pain, it's ok because she looks adorable in it!  (if you click on the pictures, you can see them larger!)

I feel kind of bad that I didn't make a dress for Celeste too, but after 2 in a row, I just couldn't handle any more fiddly little pieces!

Let the stripes continue!

I warped my loom a couple weekends ago, intending to make a snow princess scarf using some white mohair laceweight strung with little white sequins.  I worked up a few inches and remembered why I hate mohair - why does it have to be so damn scratchy?  in the ball it feels lovely, and it looks like a fluffy bunny, but any way I use it it ends up feeling like burlap on my skin!  So, I carefully cut it off the warp threads and started over with some mystery navy stuff that I bought on a cone for like $2 at the Woolgathering or UVFF several years ago.  I decided that it was pretty boooring and decided (I know this is going to shock you!) to stripe in some scraps!  whee!  i used some red and pink wool, and some heathered green lion brand something or another, and a bit of left over SWS.  I love it!  it's insanely long - like the piece in front on this picture actually goes down to around my knee and I have it wrapped twice around my neck then tossed over my shoulder.  As if it weren't long enough,  I added navy fringe.  why not?  

In keeping with the stripe theme, I bought myself Merlin for my birthday and decided to cast on last weekend.  I'm using the Little Knits Divine Lace in plum jelly that I reclaimed from my citron that I just never liked, and some baby blue Baruffa Cashwool that I got in a trade.  I love the color combo and I love the picture of this finished scarf/wrap BUT i kind of hate knitting it.  it's not bringing me much pleasure.  There's something about knitting laceweight yarn on size 8 needles that I find difficult, and there's this 5 stitch decrease that is no fun but I'll be forced to do it throughout the whole damn project.  I'm pressing on because I'm hoping it starts feeling better at some point. 

I'm also pressing on because you may notice something odd/stupid about the skein of the blue cashwool - it's stuck on the post of my yarn winder.  Like stuck tight.  When I say tight, I mean really f'ing tight!  When I first started winding I had my swift really pushed out far because I thought the skein was going to fall off and there was just no play on the shaft - I don't know how to describe it, but it wasn't spinning easily and I really had to crank the ball winder to move the swift - I was concerned that I was kind of distorting the yarn, but never thought that I might be winding so tight that I'd never get it off the winder.  About half way though I adjusted the swift and thought "whew - that's better!" but it was too late.  not that I realized it was too late until, well, it was too late and I'd wound all 1650 yards of the stuff!  it's a good thing the shaft comes off, I'd say!  So here are my options - just knit from it and hope that as I use up yarn it'll decrease pressure, or just cut it and wind it all (remember we're talking about 1650 yards!) from the shaft into a ball.  The pro for option #1 is that I'll kind of be forced to keep working on this damn thing if I ever want to wind another ball of yarn again!  The con is that I'm probably kidding myself that using 500 yard will decrease the pressure enough to get the other 2/3 of the yarn off.  The pro of option #2 is that I'll have my ball winder back in business, but the con is that it may be an excuse to not work on it as much because there's no real driver left.  Plus it's going to take like 5 years to wind that off!  it's a real pickle I've gotten myself into here.