Equilibrium, or lack thereof

Both the Juki and Bernina have been in the shop for service.  I find it extremely unsettling to have any of my machines out of place.  The Juki came home first and I absolutely could not figure out where my straight stitch foot disappeared to.  The shop insisted they didn't have it and I had signed a paper when I dropped it off that said it had no presser feet with it.  Well dang!  I searched everywhere I could think of.  All my pockets, all the purses I've used lately, the cabinet I keep the Juki accessories in, the Tutto case I transported the machine in....no luck.  I went back to the shop and he searched again and generously offered to order one for me at no cost.  I kept on looking, for another week.  So frustrating!

Well guess what turned up this morning.  Yep.  There it is.  I was shifting between purses again.  I keep a packet of tissues in each purse for convenience.  This time I decided to shift the fuller pack to the current purse and guess where the presser foot was hiding!  I was going to tidy away the small purse to the bin in my closet and who knows when I would have taken it out again.....and when I might have needed a tissue!  I called the shop to apologize for being such a ditz and thank them again.  Yeesh.  You just never know.

Can you see the presser foot in there?

I've moved my coloring books and pencils upstairs to The Tramp's study.  Silly for me to be sitting downstairs by myself in the evening.

The Viking is still tracked out of school.  Though he is getting a little big for it, he was happy to spend a couple of hours in the play area at the mall.  "Look, Nini!  I've reached level 27!"  He is very much about video games these days and levels and portals and such punctuate his conversation.  :-)

While moving my coloring stuff I cleared out some of the lingering boxes around my desk left over from last year's house move.  I still have a collection of tape cassettes and sorted out a pile to throw away.  Well!  Guess who was fascinated with them.  He read all the labels, stacked and sorted them, wondered what they sound like, and insisted I should buy a cassette player.  lol  Not likely.  :-)

Last year I had made him an orange kitten.  Out of the blue he asked me to make a Mommy Cat for his kitten.

Quicky followed by a request for Daddy Cat.  Same pattern, but somehow Mommy and Daddy are smaller and skinnier than Kitten.  Not sure what I did differently.  They are a strange looking bunch, but he loves them.  The day wasn't complete without a family portrait.

I made a Catch All Caddy for Mom for Christmas, but didn't get any photos of it until this week.  I've had that pansy fabric forever.  About five yards of it.  It's pretty.  I should use it!

The boy showed up very out of sorts Wednesday. Bad in his stomach, sad in his heart, and mad in his head. So we made a feeling doll.  Of course he insisted it be a dolphin.  A sad dolphin.  He drew pictures of sad dolphins and I sewed.  He's given all his sad feelings to the dolphin and says he feels much better.  Amateur psychology at it's best.....or worst.  So far, so good.  

I also made a pillow sham to match Dad's train quilt.  I'm happy to say he likes the quilt very much.  :-)

Rollercoaster weather continues.  No rain (hallelujah) and warm enough this week to play outside in a t-shirt.  He was drawing quilts on the driveway (as well as trucks and creatures and portals).

The purple "quilts" have pictures of us in them and I've been told I need to make us matching quilts.  Hmmmm.

And then we get to today which was downright cold.  The sun is always warm, but the wind chill was just too much for the sun to overcome.  Of course the boy was very warm from running around.  There are steering wheels to his left on this play structure.  He was piloting a plane.  "Get on the plane, Nini!  We are going to Indiana!"  Indiana??  Then we flew to New Jersey.  That makes sense, he's been there.  In the car on the way home he abruptly informed me he'd never been to Indiana, but he has an Indiana Jones game.  Oh.

Brrrrrrr.

Also today, we retrieved my Bernina from the spa.  It's back in it's table and ready to go. Ahhhhhh....that's better.  Equilibrium has been restored.

Blue skies

The first thing I did after last weekend's fun with family, dogs, and muddy yard was wash floors.  Phew!

The Viking was all about Ninjago on Tuesday.  He spent lots of time waving around and spinning his pirate sword like nunchucks.  So a quick raid of the fabric stash to make him into a "green ninja."  

We took dogs for a walk and he ninja-ed the whole way.  Running and spinning and saving us from numerous imaginary villans.  :-)

I finished The Tramp's weighted blanket.  Well....actually....to be honest....silly me left two rows off by mistake.  Ooops.  They've since been added.  The denim is awfully hot though and now the weather has warmed up (it was 84F today!) I'll have to make one with lighter fabric.  "Hurry up and take the picture!  It's heavy!"

Such a messy process!  My clothes, the floor, the table, inside my sewing machine, and now all over our bedroom.  Sigh.

These shears are the only way to get through all the snipping on a rag quilt.  And snipping the heavy denim required me to wear a leather work glove to save my hand!  I'm thinking this blanket is also way too heavy for my washer and dryer and we're going to have to haul it to a commercial laundry.  Hmmmmm.  Not my best thought out idea.

On Thursday The Viking announced he wanted to sew a giraffe.  Not sure where that came from.  He was happy to switch his allegiance to a pre-printed stuffed bunny project panel.  He manned the foot pedal while I guided the fabric.  Very tricky, but we managed it.  He happily pulled wads of stuffing out of the box while I stuffed and sewed up the opening.  "I love it Nini!  It doesn't look like any of my other bunnies!"  He insisted it was a bobble head bunny because he could punch it, and named the poor thing "Bouncing Butt" because bunny starts with the letter B.  Okaaaay.  Whatever you say kiddo.

The weather was lovely the past few days so we had fun in the yard too.  He wanted to play basketball and was happy with the only basket I could provide.  :-)

Gorgeous blue skies.

This is the current project in progress.  Six denim tote bags with colorful linings.

I'm warming up my quilting muscles on one for me.  Fun!

This morning was also gorgeous and Ivy and I went for a walk.  We live side-on to a busyish road which is slated to be widened and sidewalks added to both sides.  Before deciding to offer on this house we met with the town engineer in charge of the project to find out what the impact on the property would be.  "Widening" is a bit of a misnomer.  The road will be widened only to add turning lanes where there are none and to add a planted median in the center.   Two roundabouts will be added up the road from us to make the intersections safer and of course the sidewalks will be a marvelous addition.  We were assured the whole plan is designed to slow traffic and guide it safely along this very curvy road.  In addition, it is hoped that much of the traffic that uses this route as a cut-through will be encouraged to use the main roads instead.  We shall see, but the sidewalks will make things much safer for the pedestrians we often see.  There is a school at one end of the road and a small shopping center at the other end which would be nice to walk to.  This stretch of verge, in the photo, is nice and wide, but I can't go too far or I'll be walking in the busy road.

The surveyors have recently finished their work and left colorful flagged posts all up and down the road.  Our wall is just outside of the work zone thank goodness.

Ivy and I walked a new-to-us side road today and found lots of flowering shrubs and trees, along with a large patch of purple iris, as well as stumbling upon a small (ish) water tower.

 No flat roads here.  Everything is up and down.  Good exercise!

 It was lovely sitting on our own deck as well.  Very breezy.

Enjoy it while it lasts, Ivy.  Storms predicted for tomorrow!  :-)

Warm fuzzies

On the first warm mornings after the ice and snow melted we had some lovely scenes of mist (warm fuzzies?) rising from the pond.

The Viking surprised me with his reaction to seeing the mystery quilt all together for the first time.  After a double-take, he sat down suddenly on the floor and exclaimed "WOW!  You made the biggest quilt I ever seen!  Lots of pieces.  It has so many different kinds of shapes!"   Awwww.  Warm fuzzy feelings.  :-D

We enjoyed the warmth outdoors.  Sandbox time and dog walks.

And even a little work.

I also spent an afternoon baking.  I made gluten-free brownies and gluten-free vegan brownies as a warm fuzzy gift for The Tramp to take to work on the last day of his current job.  He starts a new position at the university tomorrow.  :-)  I also made some banana bread.  I searched around for a recipe that didn't include sugar, and found a good one.  Though when I turned it out of the pan quite a bit stayed in the bottom of the pan.  Oh well.  I stuck the crumbs together with butter and ate them all up.  Yum!  I left the loaf upside down on the board and the rest of it sliced up just fine.  I'm going to have to try again as we all liked it very much.

I've moved on to the borders of the En Provence mystery quilt.  After I finished all four of these border strips I realized my mistake.  There should only be two neutral four patches between the star point blocks.  Sigh.  Rip, rip, rip.  No warm fuzzies here.

The Viking slept over at our house both Friday night and Saturday night while his parents went to two nights of a Led Zeppelin tribute band show.  A little warm fuzzy TV quieted the Energizer Bunny down so I could cook dinner.

Part of the excitement of sleeping over at Nini and Grumpy's house is bathtime with a different set of bath toys.  His favorites are the sharks....which he also insisted on taking to bed.  Warm?  No.  Fuzzy? Not at all.  Weird kid.

He started singing Riders on the Storm in the bath so afterwards we were treated to an impromptu towel dance.  :-D

Luna Lapin has form now.  I think she will look more comfortable clothed though.  Warmer anyway.

Sniff.  I listed the Bernina 530 on Craigslist today.  I'm in love with the new 720, as well as my other machines, but.....sniff.....it's still hard to let one go.  Sigh.

Speaking of other machines, I decided to bring out the 201-2 for a small project today.  It's the first time I've used it since I polished and lubed it up and The Tramp rewired the potted motor.  I gave it some oil, inserted a needle and ran it without thread to get the oil moving.  I heard a tick, tick, tick noise.  Hmmmmm.  Never heard that before.  After much listening and looking I took out the needle and the machine ran silently.  Well dang!  What did I do wrong when I put back together??  I already knew the tension assembly wasn't quite right so I started by finding my tutorial and taking it apart and putting it back together again.  I found the step I had missed in the tutorial so the tension is perfect now.  The machine was still ticking and it wouldn't take up the bobbin thread and stitch.  So I dug up the tutorials on taking the bobbin case apart and reassembling it.  Oh my.  I definitely did that wrong too.  It took lots of grumbling and a few tries, but now the machine is humming wonderfully.  Yay!  Send a warm fuzzy sympathy card to The Tramp.  ;-)

I had just a small project in mind today and it was wonderful to finally start sewing.  I made the name tag for myself a while ago from this tutorial.  A friend recently mentioned needing a new name tag.  I know she has a Bernina Nova which has a special place in her heart so I decided to try it.  What fun!  And it looks ok.  I'm not fussed if she wears it or not, the fun was in the making, and there are sure to be warm fuzzies in the giving.

Now I think I'll go put on my warm fuzzy socks and slip the hot water bottle in the bed.  Sweet dreams!