Insurance

Secret sewing going on here today so nothing new to show.  Yesterday afternoon I set The Viking up in his sandbox and snuck in a little La Passacaglia sewing time.  Normally I need lights and magnifiers to make hand stitching possible, but with this kind of hand piecing I don't seem to need any of those aids and can pick it up and sew almost anywhere.  A delightful surprise!

All of the sand buckets were pressed into use as "knight hats."

He danced and jumped around pretending the green one was stuck on his head.  "I can't get my knight hat off!  Have to call insurance!"  Insurance???  That was a surprise.  He's only three!

Anyway.  While he entertained me with songs and dances (which can become pretty epic), I plugged away at my hand sewing.  So far so good.

I found a plastic pencil box under my cutting table, jumbled in with the stack of empty project bins and it's perfect as a take-along kit.  It even fits in my purse.  And it's purple!  What more could I ask?  :-)

What time is it?

The Viking says hello!  He showed up on Monday morning wearing his hat backwards as a mask.

I took this photo during a spirited discussion about what time it was.  I never did figure out what he was trying to find out as all my answers (8:56, breakfast time, morning, Monday) were rejected.  I mentioned it on Facebook and a friend cleverly suggested "25 or 6 to 4!"  I got a good chuckle out of that.  I told the The Viking and he enjoyed shouting "25 or 1:30" from his car seat when we went out on an errand.  We even opened the sunroof to let his shouts out of the car.  Never a dull moment with The Viking around.

The Tramp and I recently invested in a proper clothesline.  Of course it seems to have been raining for weeks, but I've managed to squeak in some drying time.

The crazy thing kept collapsing when I least expected it.  New parts were mailed to us and now it works just fine.  Both Lehmans and the Hills US representatives were very responsive.  A pleasing experience.

A clothesline requires a peg apron of course, so I found a tutorial and whipped one up.

Unfortunately Dad took a fall on Monday afternoon so Monday night and Tuesday were all about the hospital.  The Viking certainly didn't mind, it's all a party to him.  It also helped that I had finished putting his jet pack together from this tutorial.  Yes, I know.  I have a tutorial addiction.  He had on and off buttons and plenty of flames to make him go.  He was a hit everywhere we walked in the hospital.

Dad perked up very nicely when they decided he should go home.  It seems odd to take hospital photos, but it's a great way to let the far flung family know he was doing fine.

Waves were sent in return and here is MD waving from the hospital she works in.  Ain't smart phones wonderful!

I also had my La Passacaglia quilt pieces with me and got a few sewn together.

I even made one of the suggested finger pincushions and I really like it!  So handy.

Today I met up with The Viking and ED at the pediatrician to get his hearing checked.  He was as good as gold as they led him away for hearing tests and cleaned out and syringed his ears.  I couldn't resist pointing out to ED that she was not like her son.  :-D

I'm slowly working away on the 365 Challenge quilt.  The larger blocks take four times as long to put together as the smaller blocks.  I'm done with April now and hope to push through May before we get too far into June.  I want so badly to see what this quilt is going to look like when it's done.  Only 244 more days to go!

It's the little things

Yesterday brought on the urge for a little gardening.  Very little in fact.  Just a few buckets from the dollar store drilled with drainage holes and planted with vegetables.  It remains to be seen how this minimalistic effort will pan out.

It's nice to see beautiful little things blooming unsupervised in corners of the yard.

Not so beautiful, but equally pleasing....to me at least....is the laying out of the components of the first La Passacaglia rosette.  A little progress!  I only jammed the printer once today so I think my Inklingo technique is improving.  :-)

Oops.  Thunder rumbling in the distance.  Time to make sure my sewing machines are unplugged.  And look at that.  Time to go to bed too.

A bit of catching up

Firstly, my dad celebrated his 94th birthday.  He spends quite a bit of time working on his ancestry and it's amazing how much he has found and how far back it goes.  To the 1300s even!  He is originally from Montreal and was very pleased to discover he is decended from two of the filles du roi.  He found a picture of this regimental flag and I sewed it up as a little quilt for his birthday gift.

In April my bee went on retreat to another fabulous house in the North Carolian mountains.  My, how serious we look while we are sewing!

But we celebrated several birthdays and there may have been some silliness too.  :-)  I'm between surgeries here.  You can see the pillow on my chair in a vain attempt to be comfortable sitting all day. And the next photo shows my teeth still intact, though the appointment with the specialist was looming.  Definitely time for some silliness.

The weather was a bit rainy, windy and foggy.  The clouds finally parted and we did get to enjoy the view.

The birthday party items were given to The Viking to enjoy, which he very much did.  He and I had a nice little "half birthday" party for him at lunch one day.  So much delight!

Besides working on my 365 Challenge blocks at retreat, I also put together this Chain Reaction quilt. Bee member Cathy, the designer of the pattern, gave us wonderful a tutorial on putting the chain blocks together.  I made mine to look like the pattern cover quilt.

 Quilting is now in progress!

Stardust has turned FIVE!  How did that happen so fast???

I find lots of free patterns and tutorials online and for some reason I thought this little cat was the cat's meow.  The Viking chose the fabrics out of my stash.  "It has to be orange, Nini!"

The pattern doesn't specify eyes.  The button eyes are a bit spooky, but he doesn't care.

I found a bunch of felt mask patterns and asked The Viking if he would like to be a bat.  Yes he said, but he won't wear it.

I made the eye holes bigger so he consented to put it on for a photo which we texted over to Mommy at her office.

He was delighted with Mommy's reaction!  He was further delighted to have a printout of the photo to show off to everyone.

He dotes on his stuffed cats.  I tried out another tutorial on making an animal carrier out of plastic canvas.  It's a bit weird, but he doesn't care.  It holds his precious cats and that's all that matters.

In between everything else I did manage to get the center of the 365 Challenge quilt together.  I'm still playing catch-up with the daily blocks though.

The cats also got sleeping bags.  Back we went to the stash and The Viking this time insisted on blue and green, "and flowers Nini!"  They are a little tight for him to maneuver the cats into so I'm going to try to insert zippers this week.  We shall see.

The Sailor Son came for Mother's Day weekend.  I needed strawberries for the dessert I was planning so we went and picked a bucket.  The week of rain and hail had taken a toll on the fields, but we managed to find enough good ones for gluten-free strawberry shortcakes.

He wore a bow tie to please his Nanny and Papa!

My goodness.  Am I shrinking??

Oh!  I also sewed up a bunch of these foot pedal non-skid thingies for myself and my bee friends.

The last little project was this silly cat for The Viking.  It's nice he indulges me by enjoying all of this odd stuff.  Pinterest has a lot to answer for.  ;-)  The others are getting a bit old for a lot of this nonsense.  I guess I'm just going to have to dig deeper into the psyche of their age groups and see what I can find to make.