Willy Wonka (the womb name) was born yesterday and this is his quilt. Can you tell his mom likes purple? I have to admit, I was very leery about making a purple quilt. I was worried it would be too purple. It really almost is, and I doubt I’ll use purple fabric for anything in the near future, but overall, I’m pleased with the outcome.

For the stars, I used a stack and whack approach. I started with 9 inch squares of fabric and these blocks ended up just over 6 inches when I was done. I kept swearing to myself during the first round of stars (I did 8 at a time) that I would photo the entire next set for a tutorial. Unfortunately, I ended up trying a different method on the second set. (If you look closely you can see that in some of the blocks, the points extend all the way to the edge. Those are the first batch.)

There were definitely not enough tutorials (here’s one and I can’t even find the other one) on how to do this out there, and I still have two stacks of squares left, so maybe — in my copious spare time — I’ll get around to making more blocks. Would anyone want those when I’m done? Because, I don’t know that I could bring myself to keep them. I’m just all purpled out. Gasp! Maybe I should have a contest!

Wow, that looks even ickier typed out than it did in my head. A contest? really? Someone call a doctor.

And just because I’m feeling daring, here’s the next project on the blocks (ha ha… no pun intended). Someone is having baby number two. I think she just wants another quilt.

You can see just how not purple it is.

This year, I swore I’d be ready. So I’ve been reading books about how to write (does anyone else see the irony in that? I mean, what kind of loser reads books about how to write?) and thinking thinking thinking for the last 4 months of a good plot. Yeah. Um. I got nothing. Well, ok, that’s not entirely true, I have about 25 “scenes” in a plot that is going nowhere fast. It’s the “journey” of a nine-year-old girl in a post-apocalyptic world. Here’s the trouble. I have no idea where she is going. I need some sort of major conflict to lead up to — as if the apocalypse isn’t conflict enough. I’ve got virtually no subplots either.

I want to write something with a hint of the supernatural. I’ve read so many books with ghosts and magic and whatnot lately that it’s just nagging at me. But what? I keep considering just picking a setting and starting, but last year that’s what did me in I think. I need a little bit more of a road map than just where to start.

Oddly, I’m not the only one who views the thought of banging out 50,000 words in 30 days as torture. (Actually, it’s not the word count that seems so daunting to me, but more the complete lack of direction.) There are so many posts in the forums dedicated to how much NaNo sucks. There is a forum named “NaNoWriMo ate my soul” that contains threads with titles like “101 ways to epic fail october”, “Adopt a Pessimist”, and my personal favorite “IHMAWTD Lounge” (that’s “I Hate Myself And Want To Die”).

Anyway, I’ve been hanging out in the aforementioned forums and I keep waffling back and forth between “I can make this work”, and “I suck so bad it’s not even worth thinking about”. I know reading posts in IHMAWTD is not really constructive, so I keep trying to plant myself in the plot doctoring forum. Problem with that is, either the other people’s plots sound sooo much more interesting than mine, or they are about zombies and vampires (retch).

A friend suggests I find my audience. So here’s where I implore you, is there anyone out there that even cares? Throw me a bone if you do.

So Chris answers all of the questions with her standing over his shoulder coaching him. When he finishes (and the bonus question was hard I tell ya — it was a trick question — there is no cell E1!) she looks at him and snatches the page and says, “I’m going to grade it now.” Which she does with very little fanfare.

As it turns out she was actually supposed to return this parental homework, but she left it sitting on the computer desk between us. I picked it up to take it to her homework bag — don’t ask me, I don’t know why they don’t just use a folder — when I noticed the grade she gave Chris.

+++A+++

Seriously. I guess he passed.

The colored fabric (except for the binding) is Moda’s Apron Strings line from a few years ago.  I bought a charm pack back then, cut out all the triangles, and shoved it all in a bag and left it there until about 5 weeks ago. I’m not sure what I was thinking trying to do a pattern with this shape, but it seems to have come out ok. I only frogged it about 3 times.

The binding was a major pain. I walked around my local quilt store for hours looking for something that would work because the main fabrics were no longer available. Finally, I admitted defeat and asked for help. The binding was the third fabric the awesome ladies at the quilt shop suggested. I didn’t notice it until I got it home to cut, but it’s actually a Christmas fabric. I’ll have to find something to do with it this year, since I’ve got a good 3/4 yard left.

I was thinking the other day, that I have made 3 baby quilts (though this last one could be categorized as a lap quilt) in less than a year. There’s another one in the works though, my friend Rebecca is expecting now!

I’ve been thinking about this project ever since I saw the one over at Pink Chalk Studio. And I decided it would be a great inexpensive stocking stuffer for the oh-so-spoiled Alexis. Besides, that kid loves her art supplies. I didn’t even have to go shopping for any of the stuff. The fabric all came from my scrap bin - which seems to grow exponentially every month, I should really find some more stash/scrap busting projects. And I confiscated the pencils from Alexis herself. When I spent SIX hours last week cleaning out her room, I found more markers and pens and pencils than anyone person should be allowed to have.

I’ve seen these things all over the net, and they’re all beautiful, but I really love the ones that have the graduated rainbow pattern for the pockets. I’m a sucker for rainbows. I also really liked the look of the linen for the background fabric. It’s the perfect compliment to all the busy colors, and it’s classy. I adore linen. Unfortunately the scraps of linen I had left were not wide enough to cut the backing fabric from one piece, so I used a small strip of the pieced fabric to connect two pieces of linen for the back. I love how it turned out. There is just a hit of what you’ll find inside when it’s all rolled up.

I had a couple of false starts when I was making this. I actually had to piece the stripes twice because the first time around I made them too narrow for the pencils to actually fit in the pockets. THAT was annoying. I thought I might actually have to go fabric shopping because the orange and that yellow-green (what’s up with yellow-green/green-yellow and blue-green/green-blue anyway? Who can really tell the diff?) were tiny little scraps to start with. Somehow I managed to squeak out just enough for the two stripes, though, and so my stash was busted. Yay!

Now. Seriously. Pass on the list of scrap stash busters, my room is a huge mess.

When she finished reading the passage tonight, Chris asked her if she knew what the book she was reading from was. Smartly, she closes the book and reads the title aloud. “The Chocolate Living Bible”

That’s my girl!

Here is little Baby J’s quilt all quilted up and in desperate need of a wash. I’ve had the quilting done since Thanksgiving, but I never think a quilt is “done” until it’s been washed and gets that wrinkly puckered quilt look. I should really get that done so that I can take it over there before she goes off to college.

I really love the backside fabric on this one. No, it’s not cut on the bias, it’s actually printed that way. And it is so silky soft that you almost wouldn’t know it is just quilting cotton.

I’m not the only one who loves it either, I took the unbound quilt to my local quilt store for advice on binding. The ladies there couldn’t find anything they liked with the front of the quilt more than the backing fabric. So instead of selling me something, they all agreed that I should “fake” the binding and roll the back over to the front.  I’ve done this before, but never on something where the back would be readily visible. The one that comes to mind immediately is the tree skirt I made several years ago (total PotteryBarn knock off, I should really take pictures). Anyway, I digress… I didn’t want the edges on the back to be “flat” as if there was no binding, so if you look closely the quilting I did in a straight line around the edges is visible. It’s not perfect, but it presents a good enough illusion, I think.

You can also see that I did a somewhat more interesting quilting pattern than the straight lines on the last quilt. I did start to get bored with it toward the end but at least it went quickly. I also discovered on this one, that I really only like one kind of hand quilting thread (Sulky 100% Cotton) and only one kind of quilting needle (PieceMakers betweens). I tried a thread from JoAnn but it was so thick and it really was hard to get through the quilt. I ended up picking out several pattern repeats and re-doing them with the new thread. Never again. I’ll pay the extra at the quilt store for the good thread and needles!

1. My earliest gymnastics memory is of Mary Lou Retton hitting her perfect 10 on vault at the 1984 Olympics.  That Christmas I - and everyone else on my gymnastics team - got a Mary Lou leotard. You know, the one with the stars on one shoulder and the stripes on the rest of it? I think that was the only 3/4 sleeve leo I ever owned.
2. I only see doctors I really like, and I’ll drive a long way to get to them if necessary. I figure if they aren’t going to listen to me, or they consistently diagnose the wrong condition (a la House without the almost dying part) they aren’t worth my time or money. Some of the pickiest people I know have asked me for MD references, and as far as I know, no-one has been disappointed yet.
3. I hold a first degree black belt in Tang Soo Do (that’s TONG SOO DOH) and I regret every day that I’m not still training. I miss my fellow students and the training and sense of community within a school, but I try to live my life by the basic eastern principles that are taught with traditional martial arts. Some day I hope I’ll find the right place to train again.
4. When I started college, my major was pre-med. I changed it to computer science after I took my second programming class. I have no idea what possessed me to take a second programming class because I hated the first one so much. Some Most days, I wish I hadn’t switched.
5. Over the years I’ve tried about every craft or art out there. Sewing, quilting, painting, writing, throwing pottery, collaging, crochet, cross-stitch and finally knitting. I think knitting is “the one”. I enjoy it more than any of the others, but I still dabble often. And I’d still love to take a class in large scale metal sculpture.
6. I am falling apart. I’ve ruined tendons in both ankles, had knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus, and now there is something unknown going on with my shoulder.
7. I wish I lived on Castaway Cay — only with out the hummingbird sized mosquitoes at night.
8. I have an enormous capacity to forgive wrongs against me, but will hold a grudge forever against those who hurt my loved ones.
9. In my junior year of high school I was diagnosed with epilepsy. Until the diagnosis - and sometimes even after - my teachers and counselors insisted to my mother that I was on drugs. My grades fell drastically and I dropped from the top 10% of my class to the bottom half.
10. I love my house so much that I never want to move.
11. On the last day of my senior year in high school, my English teacher told me that I am the most sorry excuse for a human being she had ever met. I left the classroom because I didn’t believe I had to sit around and be treated like that. But a cop in the hallway stopped me. When I told him what had happened and that I was going to the office, he pulled my teacher from the classroom to confirm my story, and she ADMITTED it was true. What a dumb ass!
12. I dream about staircases to nowhere on a regular basis. These dreams are often so terrifying that I wake shaken for the rest of the day.
13. I went to college out of state, and I’m still paying for it.
14. The older I get, the more I look like my mother. I found a picture at my aunt’s house a few years ago. It took a second for me to realize that it was of me at about 1 yo sitting on my mother’s knees and not me holding my daughter.
15. I totally can’t work a fax machine.
16. I met my husband on America Online. He was chatting with me about how to break up with the jerk I was seeing at the time.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent gift recipients

me: godI could so easily spend $75 on yarn to get free shippingno comment?Chris: nope, I understand how that worksme: :)wellI put the fawn in the cart  then went looking for kid friendly machine washable wool…found it$10/skein… 1 skein per kidChris: cool me: so that’s like 35 bucksbut then… I started lamenting giving my new petting yarn awayeven though I bought it for xxxxxxxChris: there is a blog in here somewhereme: oh godyou’re rightexcept your mom reads itso the question iscan I justify spending $44 on yarn that I will likely just pet?Chris: in the long run….  it’s cheaper than a cat me: LMAO  that is so greatI just want you to tell me to buy it even though I was bitching about money this morningChris: thank you, I’ll be here all week, enjoy the buffetbuy it even though you were bitching about money this morningme: hehdid you cut and paste?;)Chris: pretty muchhighlighted and draggedme: I’ll probably kick myself on 1/1… but I can pet my new cat and feel betterChris: definitely a blog in thisme: good thing google auto saves these conversations