Stop laughing. Jimmy, the amazing guy who fixes my machine at least once a year and always suggests I buy a new one, well he says I have a screw loose…in my machine. It’s done this before. Something to do with an assembly deep inside the machine and he needs to take it apart and tighten one single screw that is deep down in there, which I loosened by driving the puppy 4,000 miles per hour instead of some stately old lady speed. He’s keeping her for a week and will maintenance her also. Yeah, I know. Bad English. It’s a Bad English kind of day.
Let’s see if I can summarize the long Thanksgiving weekend. It rained and was cold, but not cold enough for snow. The boychild read 8 books. He started a ninth but didn’t like it. I read about 3/4s of a book. I quilted about 3/4s of a quilt until my machine stopped. I sewed three Christmas ornaments together, but they still need some finishing touches and bead dangly bits, so you can’t see them yet. I entertained my daughter for HOURS. The plus is that she does very well with handstitching in terms of patience. The minus is that she wants to be as good at it as I am, and I don’t have any crappy early stitching examples to prove to her that it takes TIME to get better…and PATIENCE. Which she has none of (told you there would be more Bad English). But she did well with the handwork…she finished an orange…
And this one is almost done…
And there was a fishy one and a beaded one, but I will have to photograph them later. I will probably have to make more wool balls so I can make some of these too. I thought there would be enough, but she has plans for all of them, apparently. It’s scary when they start eyeing your stash…
She was also supposed to get this gift done out of the Quilting Arts Gifts issue (which by the way is where the ball idea is from also) for her aunt, but it was machine work and she couldn’t find the focus to KEEP GOING, so I ended up finishing the stitching on it. Here she is crankily working on it.
Know that there are probably at least 2-5 more hours of stitching involved with this project…we may not survive it. (OK, I may not survive it). Look at her really intensely cranky face. Wow.
The Lake Arrowhead area has changed a lot since the bark beetle infestation swept through and devastated many of the trees. They had to be cut down and removed, which means my parents now have a lake view in summer and winter, which is nice, but a lot of the protection from the wind is gone. UCLA owns the land behind my parents and they have planted little baby trees to replace the dead ones (different species that will be more resistant to the bark beetle), and my dad waters as many of them as he can find. Since my parents also lost quite a few trees, they have planted more, at least one for each grandchild. I have this picture from Xmas 2003, I think, of the two kids with one of the trees planted for them…
And here they are in 2008 with each of their respective trees…
The kid has grown, but that’s a giant redwood…guess who’s going to win out on size. And here’s the boychild…
More later…
November 30, 2008 at 3:42 pm |
the ornaments look great! They are totally addictive once you start. You can also start with white balls and make day of the dead skulls. There is a great source for wool felt squares in Corona they have 100 colors for .65 each.
http://www.vintagevogue.com/onlinestore/cat128_1.htm