Jogging, Canning, and Art Oh My!

Jogging has been going.... pretty well I might add. I am only through day two of week two, but I am feeling pretty good about myself. Jogging outside by the waterfront is turning out to be way more motivating than the workouts I used to try to do in the weight room of the old apartment. There is so much to look at that it takes my mind off of the running itself. I look at the city and the fog, the sailboats with their bright or stark white sails, and the container ships when they are in port. I have to say that I am liking the running skirt. While the shorts underneath are still a bit creepish, the skirt keeps all that covered up, so I am less self conscious about it all. It is also really comfortable to run in for the most part and looks rather nice. I feel way more stylish than just running around in some ill fitting shorts. The only disappointing thing was that the zipper broke on the key pocket the first day I used them. I am looking to repair that today if I can get the key back onto the teeth. My first attempts were thus far unsuccessful.

I am also gearing up for the fist major canning operation of the season. This Saturday I am going to go cherry picking. I have found a place with sour cherries, and I am so excited to finally be able to make a sour cherry pie! I miss those so much. I have already purchased my clear jel and cannot wait to try out my first canned pie filling. I am also going to work on a couple varieties of cherry jam. I am hoping to do small batches of bing or dark sweet cherry jam of some sort, Rainer cherry jam for my Dan, and perhaps some white cherry jam. I also introduced Dan to the concept of spirited cherries. I think they would be a unique addition to his Manhattans, so I may also be canning some of them. I am going to go to the kitchen supply store this afternoon to buy a cherry pitter in order to prepare for this onslaught of cherry goodness. I usually do my pitting by hand, but I think with these huge plans I will need the faster mechanized method to get through them all in the weekend before heading home for a quick family visit.

I am also pumped to go to the DeYoung museum tomorrow night! We are going to go and see the Paris exhibit of the Impressionists. I cannot wait to see this awesome display of some of my favorite painters. It will be nice to get to see some pictures in person without the expense of flying to Paris. I also want to go and see the Amish quit exposition before it closes to give me the inspiration to finally start cutting my first quilt. I have always admired the bold colors and unique use of shapes that the Amish quilts embody. Our current quilt on the bed is a handmade Amish quilt I bought at an auction back in Illinois when we lived near the Illinois Amish country. While my first quilt will not be the typical solid color combination of the Amish quilts, I hope it is crafted as well as the one I bought... with modern conveniences of course. I am going to cut by hand, piece by machine, and quilt by hand. I figure it is a good mix for my first quilt. This is also going to be a challenge since I cannot strip piece my quilt. I am making it out of scraps, so all the diamonds are going to have to be cut individually by hand and then pieced and sew together. It seems daunting, but I am sure I can do it.

Well I am off to finish up some gifts for people and perhaps pick up my black skirt before giving in to this new quilt project. There are also some costumes to be made before the end of July when I leave for Chaos Wars. So much crafting and homemaking, so little time!

Quilt Plans

I don't really need any more hobbies, but ever since I started sewing, I always held onto my fabric scraps. I just could not see throwing away what seemed to be good fabric that I could someday find something to use it on. I have always admired quilts, especially Amish style quilts, and I thought perhaps someday I would start quilting as well. I even bought my first quilt, a hand pieced and hand sewn Amish made quilt, at a quilt auction in the Amish area of central Illinois. I love it and admired the careful handwork and designs sewn all over the simple patches, but I am constantly worried about over using it. We need another one to help rotate it out of service now and then.

Now, I finally think the scraps are out of control enough to have to put them to a purpose. I am working on designing my first quilt. I am looking at using these fabrics from some of my first sewing projects and some more recent acquisitions in a broken Lone Star style design. I need to decide on some other fabrics that I would have to buy for the framing pieces of the Lone Star. I am not sure which of the colors I would match up, but I am thinking about the yellow and blue as being the ones I highlight. I have used an on line coloring program to work out different ways to place the colors of fabric. I just cannot decide. I know I want the yellow in the middle, and then I think the blue, then black, the red, and finally yellow tips. The other configuration that I am thinking is yellow middle, black, blue, red, and yellow tips. I guess I will just have to cut out some pieces and play with it before deciding. Any thoughts on what you think would look better? I will post pictures of any progress that I make.

Today, the goal is to finish up the hand embroidery of the belt. I ran out of the thread that I needed for the double feather stitch, so a store run this weekend was necessary. Now that the threads are back in stock, the sewing can commence. I also want to get my new black skirt cut out and mostly assembled today. They are lofty goals, but doable ones. I also would like to get my walk in today for the 10,000 steps, but I think the weather will prevent me from doing so. Late rain showers are in the area again today, and while I love the gloomy weather and we need the rain, I don't particularly want to walk in the rain today. Hopefully I can figure out a solution for the exercise. Well so much to do and so much inspiration. I am off for sewing goodness.

Radio Paradise, Tomatoes, and a Quilt

This weekend was rather interesting and action packed. I had the show down in Morgan Hill that I have been prepping for the last few weeks. After much agonizing over choreography and what I wanted artistically when I listened to the music, I settled on doing improv. I was somewhat happy with the result, but wished I could have done a bit better with my interpretation of the music. Everyone seemed to like it, but I had parts I would do differently. I guess that can almost always be said. I just wanted to write a quick thank you in here to Paloma and Devvvora for all the hard work they do setting up and arranging these shows. With out your hard work, none of this would happen! Thank you!

Today I decided that I wanted to turn off the television and get back to some music while I work around the house and on stuff for the shop. I really like to listen to Radio Paradise, but I do not like having to attach the laptop to the stereo. I used to use a Nokia 770 for this application, but as of a few months ago, ours got rather temperamental. I decided to give it a fresh go today, and to my surprise, I have my internet radio back! I could not be happier.

On a Aerogarden note, I finally have a few of the golden cherry tomatoes ready to be picked soon. The red tomato plant seems to have stalled out, but perhaps now that it is not competing with the lettuce plants for light, it may grow again. Who knows in this little science experiment. Here is a close up of the new tomatoes:



Today on the plate, I am going to work on making some new hair flowers and photographing them for listing tomorrow. I also have to make another of the play quilts for my mother.



She has placed an order for one for a baby shower gift. I had to run out to the store on Friday to get some more materials for another one. I made the first two out of the material I bought and the extra material. (I always seem to over buy for these things.)This time I had to get some different materials for the outer border fabrics, and I am going to have to substitute some other scraps for things like the bear's neck tie. I kept with the same style for the border, but it will look slightly different when I am done. I will take pictures of the new one when it is finished. I hope to have that out by the end of the week.

I am also hoping to get the final sorting of my magazines accomplished across this week while I watch television at night. I want to eliminate all the extra paper and space these take up, so I am pulling out only the articles I want from all of my years of magazines and recycling the rest of them. The other thing I would like to get done by the end of the week is a set or two of accent falls with cowrie shells. Hopefully I will get done with the magazines sooner rather than later and can move onto the falls.

Also today, some house cleaning..... I should quit procrastinating and get that done.

Holiday Wrap Up Day 5

This weekend was another nice and relaxing time. Dan left his work at the office, and we spent the time trying to get over this cold that we both seem to not be able to kick. We played games of scrabble and tried to get our DVR below 50% full. It never seems to break that point since we got it. We also forayed into the realm of canoli making. They tasted good, but I needed to roll the dough out more so they would be less doughy and more crunchy out of the oil. We also made the filling out of mascarpone instead of ricotta, and it turned out just fine. The weather this weekend was gorgeous, but it is never fun to go out into the nice sunny weather when you feel miserable, so we just hid inside.

The parts for the serger came in on Friday, so I was able to get that all put back together. I am going to string it back up and test it out on fabric today. I am pretty excited about that and can't wait to have it back on the team. I promised myself that I will work on some sewing machine covers as soon as the new tutorial is finished. I want to protect them from dust now that I have just cleaned them out again and want to keep as much dust and lint out of them as possible. Well at least the lint and dust that I don't create when using them at least will not get into the machines.

For the review of the holidays today, I am going to show you what I made for Jozef. He is the newest member of the extended family. Jozef is the first child for my brother Kurt and his lovely and talented wife Kathy. I made a playtime quilt for him to use while he is still a stomach baby that is a non-rolley polley. I made one of these last Christmas for Craig when he was almost too old for it, but Beth said at the time that he seemed to really enjoy it. The quilt consists of nine squares, each having a new activity to explore on it. The outside is lines with black and white visually stimulating fabric. Here are all the pieces as I am getting ready to sew:



I assembled all the squares first, doing whatever appliqué or sewing was needed on that particular square. The directions for the quilt originally called for using fusible web for holding all the applique designs on when you sew. I found this to be not only unnecessary last time, but it also made me go through needles quickly. They would get dulled very quickly sewing through the web. Another change I made with this quilt was one of the heart blocks. It originally was supposed to have a musical button in it, but I decided to use bells instead. Not only are they less annoying in the long term, but they also do not run out of batteries. Another significant challenge to this project is always finding squeakers for the car block. I cannot seem to ever find them in craft or fabric stores. I have even struck out at hobby supply stores. I have resorted to trying to find them in other items in dollar stores and scrapping the item for the parts. Last time, I found a children's toy that squeaked in the head, but was a blanket at the bottom. I used the blanket's material for the duckies on both quilts and even have some left over for another quilt or two. There was only one squeaker in this one, so I had to find a new one for this year. I found it in a pair of dollar store mittens for a baby. This time I had two squeakers; one for this quilt and one for the next I have to make. I worked on this project from the Friday morning before Christmas through the night. I finally went to bed at 5 am and slept for a few hours before heading out to lunch with some friends from college. On the way to the lunch, I hand sewed the quilt binding to the backing fabric. Here is the fabric I chose this time:



In the original design, you used plain white fabric as a backing and appliqué the designs down so their colored outlines show on the backside. My machine is not the best at doing this technique to begin with let alone through all the layers of a quilt. I did not like the plain back so much last time, so I chose this colorful one this time. Here is the front of the final product:


I really enjoyed making this even though it was a late night doing it. Kathy has told me that Jozef is enjoying exploring it and finding new things each time he is on it.

On the plate for today is more knitting on Da's gift as a break when I am not working on the tutorial that will be coming up on the blog soon. I really wished I had the muscles in my arms and hands built up for knitting. I just am not there yet for long sustained knitting with out breaks, so I just knit during my breaks. ;)