appearence is everything

i having some trouble settling on a template and font. the default is just a little to light for me to see easily, but i don't want it to look too dramatic. on the other hand this is just different enough from the lowcarb forum that i'm kinda confusing myself. i did finally put in a link, but trust me, it was not a pretty sight. it seems i'm being forced to learn something new despite myself.

christmas seems to ganging up on me. i have this overwhelming urge to make christmas wall hanging, don't know why. the little partridge in a pear tree post card at http://qnm.com/webextras/feature186/is calling my name. unforturnately, when i enlarged it to make it a little wall hanging size, it just didn't work as well. everything was just too big. and i really don't want to redraw the whole thing to keep the bird small and the leaves big. so i think i'm going to try it was a post card and the little tree too. and i have an idea for a snowman looking up as snow flakes fall around him - embroidery flakes hanging from organza ribbons so that the flakes float and sway.

and then there are the gift quilts i promised patty and sarah. i'm thinking purple harmonic convergence for patty. it's going to be tricky to make it big enough, maybe a bunch of hc blocks rather than one big unit. sarah wants pink oriental. here i am totally clueless. oriental design elements not really being one of my strong points. and i suspect she and i just might not agree on just what constitutes oriental design. but i found some pink vaguely orientals that might work with something simple and strippy. we'll see.

mactavishing

well, i mactavished today. in fact, it was so much fun, i wish i was still mactavishing. i started a little wall hanging (part of the killer w-i-p during the visit) but only got the fall leaves cut out and fused. now i've outlined them and decided to mactavish the background more for practice than any great need of a fall wall hanging. (actually, it's not even that big, it's more like a door decoration). i drew a curly line on the background, check the book again, and away i went. and much to my surprise it did go. then i did some mimimactavshing between the leaves. i only got a couple of inches down before i had to quit and come to work, but it really seem easy, and fun. hopefully, it will look as good in the morning.

the bobbin thread is showing too much and i'm not sure what else to adjust. i'm not really in the mood to mess with the bobbin tension. and my starts and stops are messy. there has got to be a neater way to do it without little threads all over the place.

but the key to it all is...go... slow. whenever i tried machine quilting before, it was full bore petal to the metal speed at all cost. now i'm going slowly and have much greater control over where the stitches go and how even they are. of course, i have a long way to go for really nice stitching but i think i finally do have a handle on it.

plan A was to have pictures of my wonderful quilting, but as is most thing lately, we will have go go on to plan B.

life goes on

well, the great maternal visit is over. my mother came, liked the house, liked the dog, my db and the perfect wife came over, i was civilized. we all ate and then they left. and mum went home before the snow flew.

the quilt hanger came in a timely manner and mr m put it up on his way out of dodge. i put the red star quilt on it, and mary was very impressed that that red matched almost to a "T" the red in the dinning room chairs. i made 2 pillows, one from a harmonic convergence practice piece and one with stars using the focus fabric and another red. i finished the curtains and got everything hung, albeit, crookedly. the killer work-in-progress in the sewing room never out started, but given the amount of time the guests spend in the sewing room, they never would have noticed anyway.

mary was satisfied the the state of the house, denise is at least $600-700 richer, i got the cat pee smell out of my bedroom carpet (or have gotten so totally used to it, i don't smell it anymore). so all and all, it went well.

the good news is, i sewed. the bad new, the points didn't match.

and so it goes.