Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Quilting, well about anything vs allergy season

Allergy season, for me, appears to be getting worse each succeeding year. I always described it as "hay fever" but after having looked it up I have discovered that hay fever only occurs during the fall - duh "hay", "hay fever", the cutting of hay, etc whereas when it occurs in the spring it is called, or at least has been called, "rose fever". I guess because this is when rose bushes traditionally blossomed. But for me it is the trees: oak, pine, piƱon, cottonwood, you name it. And right after this the sage will bloom which is also a deadly one for me, especially if it has been a wet season and the sage bush has had lots of moisture. AND this year is the absolute worst for me. Runny, itchy nose; full sinuses; scratchy, runny, red, puffy eyes; scratchy throat; and a cough to end all coughs.

Now add this to attempts to do about anything and you get a stalemate. Who will win? I hesitate to say it, but the rose fever won in my case. I have had a very miserable month to say the least.

About all that I have done is knit with an occasional attempt at sewing. It is hard to see through eyes that are about swollen shut and what little there is open, covered in tears.
I finished a 2nd and 3rd pair of house socks. [photos] I guess now I have had enough practice to make Brooke her socks. So out came the yarn and a set of double pointed needles were purchased. Yikes - they started the exact opposite of what I have been practicing with - they started at the toe instead of the cuff. [photo] So I venture into new lands with this project.

I somehow absolutely missed Stashbuster's numbers game for April. I have to go back and see if I can find them. Aaaah here they are: #11 and #16. As I totally missed these, nothing got done, not even a stitch sewn on my dash cover (#11) and World Traveler (#14 taking the place of #16 which I don't have at this time. So now I go on to this month's numbers. May's are #12, a 2015 Row by Row, and #23, again will be World Traveler as I only go to  #14. Maybe I will actually do a few stitched this time on World Traveler.

In the meantime, over the last month I did get one of the OUR Quilt blocks done (that is #1 on my list). [photo] This one is #10, leaving me only 6 more to go. I then got #11 cut out. It will be good to get this one sone, whenever that may be.

I sent DS#1's quilt to the longarmers expecting it to be done in time for his birthday. Alas, nothing ever goes smoothly. She has stopped doing custom quilting and is now only doing pantograph quilting on the electronic machines. She now has 2 of them and they go full time. It is a much better money maker for her and I certainly don't see anything wrong with this decision. It is just another bump in my road. I want to do a square stippling in the large black empty areas of the quilt and shadow the boxes/cube effect in the hopes to pop the optical illusions found within the quilt. [photo] I found an example of what I am looking for, although it is much tighter than what I want.[photo]  I will redo it into a much bigger, spacier stipple. I spoke with a company out of Stover, MO and they will be able to do what I want. So now I have to buy the backing and the batting before I can send it to them.

I also had joined the birthday block group, a group within the Stashbuster's group. The first block was due the end of March. It was completed and in the mail with enough time to get to her before her birthday. [photo]. The next one, called Variable Star,  is due the last half of May and it is already completed. [photo]. I have the following one, Dutchman's Puzzle, due the third week in June, already cut and the fabrics bought and received for one of the following month's 2, Storm at Sea, as well. The second one, Shooting Star, I haven't even looked at but I must.

Summer looks like it is going to be a busy season once again. Row by Row starts on June 21 and I am ready and waiting. [photo with link] Don't know how it will go for me as I will be traveling the whole time but am hoping to get quite a wide variety/selection wherever we end up going.

And so it goes ... Miss Betsy hums along as well as Madam Singer [photo].
[photo of sewing ...]
Til we meet again, may your fingers be nimble and always busy.