finally...

 

Yippee! My box finally arrived!  You can see, though, that it looks like someone poked their fingers in there to see whether the contents were interesting enough to walk away with -- perhaps that was what was happening during the extra sojourn in Jersey City?   Apparently my taste in fabrics didn't meet with their approval...

 

And here's a plug for this month's Block Lotto -- it is Bonnie Hunter's "Scrappy Trip" blocks -- so much fun to make!  Check out the website for a very colorful set of entries.

Monday Miscellany

First things first --I received my quilt from ALQS6 today, and I am totally thrilled -- this was made from scraps of old Japanese kimonos, and the colors and texture and depth of it are superb!  It was made by Sandra Champion in Tasmania -- who happens to be a friend of my sister there. What a crazy world this is...  apparently Sandra didn't know about the connection until she casually mentioned that she had sent a quilt to Oakland and my sister said that that was her hometown. Too funny...

 

 Here's a close-up of one part of the quilt with some of the hand-stitching.

My quilt for the swap was this one, which went to Jay in Texas. I call it "Lucky Sixes" and I'm planning to make a "cousin" of it for myself one of these days.

 

(Interlude: Blogger is making me absolutely insane tonight trying to get my photos and words where I want them. And then it tries to turn all my text into hyperlinks. Why can't those geniuses make it work better?)

Okay, I feel better now.  This month's scrappy rainbow color is brown, and this is as far as I've gotten -- there's going to be a Kona Snow background,and probably a few more darker brown strips, and maybe a splash of something else to liven it up.

 

 And speaking of rainbows and strips, I finished "Think Green Thoughts" tonight. It is seriously wonky (no, it's not just my crooked photography skills) but I really like it and I think it will live in the trunk of my car for impromptu picnics and other emergencies.

Raptured in Jersey City... or Going Postal

 

Remember my story last week about how my Priority mail package spent two days sitting in Pennsylvania and then went 400 miles away to Jersey City on the way from Ohio to California?  

Well, then it sat in Jersey City for almost 4-1/2 days.  I decided that my fabric choices were so stellar that the package had been Raptured!  But then to my surprise the Post Office finally found the box sitting in a corner somewhere this morning and shunted it off 7 miles to Kearny. At least it's moving west now...

Note that the tracking page still shows an expected delivery date of last Thursday.

Fibrous content

Don't these look beautiful?  It's a totally improbable concept: baked kale chips -- I read about them on Smitten Kitchen and tried them out with half a bunch of kale yesterday afternoon.  They are wonderful!  They use just a tiny amount of olive oil and some seasalt, and they're full of all that cruciferous goodness and fiber, but they taste decadent.  They will be one of the snacks I serve on Thursday while everyone waits for the turkey to be done...

In other news, I finished a vest I'd been knitting for a while.  It stalled out for a month or two because it is a bit funky -- the variegated yarn may have been a mistake -- but I muddled through and added some crochet edging and I think I might actually wear it.

It's made from a cotton & linen blend yarn called Berroco Linsey that turned out to be a little floppier than I expected.

Quilty things coming up soon -- I have several projects that are almost done (especially if I can get the Brother to stop breaking my thread!)

priority what?

If this is priority mail, why did it take two days to get from New Jersey to Pennsylvania? Aren't those two states right next to each other? In fact, it's a 400 mile drive, which is about a one-hour flight...

And if it was in new Jersey at 2 am this morning, is it really going to be delivered to me on the west coast today?

Me... skeptical?

round robin update

A couple of weeks ago (here) I threw out the idea of a bloggers' round robin project.  So far there are eight people interested and a few more who's arms could be twisted, I think...

Since the holiday madness is quickly approaching, let's plan on a January start for this.  Here is some preliminary information to get you thinking about it, though:

You will make a starting block that will eventually come back to you with a finished quilt around it. This block should be no larger than 8" square, but it doesn't have to be square. It should reflect the colors  /style / genre of the quilt you'd like to receive.

I would like for everyone involved in this swap to have had some previous swapping experience and to not be a complete beginner. So far, I know (virtually, anyway) all except one of the people who have asked to join in.  Please feel free to spread the information around to others you've successfully swapped with in the past -- the more the merrier!

google madness?

I decided to spend a little time online this afternoon to catch up on a big backlog of blog posts that I had on Google Reader...  wasn't I surprised to find that Google had wiped my slate clean!  My list is still there, but probably 200 posts have been marked as "read" without any input from me.

If you wrote a post that you thought I should have commented on, and I didn't -- that's why!

new socks!

 

I recently bought a few socks' worth of yarn from a blog-friend who was doing some de-stashing... not that I didn't already have quite a few socks' worth of yarn in the cupboard!  Anyway, this Limerick green yarn pretty much leapt onto the needles -- it is my absolute favorite green and seems to be very hard to find in yarn.  The socks are just plain stockinette, with a few odd rows of purls thrown in for no good reason. The weather has turned a bit chilly this evening: perfect timing!

Things are a bit crazy in my town these days, what with a near-constant "Occupation" going on, intermittent marches around the downtown area, random bands of idiots breaking windows and spray-painting buildings.  As a registered, Berkeley-raised, bleeding heart liberal, I absolutely agree that the 1% should pay more taxes and the 99% should have more support -- but damn -- how does disrupting commerce for all the struggling businesses in town help that cause?