is he telling me something?

am i too slow a quilter?

i guess i need to step it up so he can sleep on it on the bed.  

the quilting process has begun!

oh my goodness...it's been a long time coming for a project that wasn't supposed to become a UFO.  just barely squeezed by on that.

the furry supervisors had to inspect

my happy pill quilt has 5 lines of quilting. (picture at the second line though).

and it's awesome so far.  i chose a brightly colored varigated thread for the top to go with the super bright colors of the blocks, and a black thread for the backing.  even though there are tons of colorful curves on the back, it still has so much black that it'll blend nicely.  and it does.  you can see above that the yellow matches the yellow cotton solid perfectly.  so does the green and my dark green solid.  and the red.  and the dark blue.  *squeeeee* i am currently happy and i really hope it turns out well.

i don't know why, but walking foot quilting actually scares me a bit.  and i am taking a vow not to turn my quilt in different directions if i don't have to - i usually do and it pulls on the fabric in different ways, so this should keep it even.... right?  but how the heck will i keep all of the quilt to the right side of the throat when i get to the left side of the queen-size quilt?  ugh.  i guess i'll be rolling it up later.

while i'm waiting on paint to dry in the midst of pouring rain, quilting is a great alternative.

summer jack of all things

the kid has been gone for 2 weeks and hubby has been working nights just a bit longer.  so what do i do all alone at the house after my 40 hours of daily grind?  oh... a little of this and that.

i have a helper while attempting to iron the top for my "happy pill" bed quilt.  

i went to sandwich and baste it 2 weeks ago, only to find out that the online store i purchased the backing from last year cut it a little short.  so i ordered another yard and i'm still waiting on that to arrive... grr...  i could have had it quilted and working on the binding!

then westychic and i finally started cutting out of collection of prints for a collaborative quilt project. she brought the original bundle of FQs over and during quilt fest, we purchase one yard cuts of other prints we liked.

then it took forever to get to a point post-Harvey where we could start work on it.  then we had to decide on what we were doing.  the pattern she brought over didn't quite work with our fabrics, so i pulled out my entire book and magazine and pattern stash.  few hours later, we had it narrowed down to two and then a trip to the store for template plastic.  cutting all of those wedges took quite a bit of time.

i'm at the point all my rows are complete per the pattern.  but i have enough cut to widen the quilt a little before i choose a border fabric.  i think i'll widen it by 2 wedges each row.

i started purl soho's notched hem tank top for a summer knitting project and garment.  i'm using knit one cotton yarn in a fingering weight.  it's a bit odd... lots of marls so it doesn't knit as smoothly and consistenly as i'd like.  

it's taking foooreeeever it seems.  i'm about 8 inches in of knitting in the round.  this pattern has a lot of firsts for me:  knitting section and putting on a holder, then knitting another duplicate section, then doing a cable cast between those two knit sections and joining in the round; short row knitting and soon.. somehow i'm splitting the knit fabric into the armhole sections and crochet edge finishing?  um ok...

while i'm not fretting over the tank, i'm working on a blanket for a gift, plus i broke out some beautiful hedgehog yarn.

this will be a shawl for me, in a pattern called "twisted stripe" that i found on ravelry.  it's got a fun "twist" in the contrast yarn - a silvery grey fuzzy lace yarn i had pulled from a long-time stash.

and now for the bigger project.... kitchen cabinet redo.

my kitchen has been under one stage of construction to another for a year and a half.  too many things got in the way (loss of a job in the house, kidney stones, heat, too busy, funerals, etc).  now that i've got quiet time and i'm not hurting from the kidney pain all day, i'm setting myself to doing it.  i filled in the raised sections of the cabinet doors and drawer fronts with a compound, now i have to sand it all down to minimize wood grain.  now i'm working on a few sections at a time to keep the nosy cats out of my cabinets.  sand, prime, insert beadboard in center panel, prime and final paint.  

i need new hinges still.  i don't want to attempt to clean off the old ones that were damaged by previous owners/tenants of my home.  i do have cabinet and drawer pulls though.  then after the cabinets are finished, it'll be time for the concrete countertop and floors.  and lights.  then it'll be done!