not much

 I don't have a lot of anything to report, but since the coming days will be full, I decided to take the opportunity to blog now.

Currently I am waiting for a guy and his truck to arrive and suck out our septic tank.  We're having some plumbing issues (old house...no surprise), so trying to eliminate the cheaper, easier things first.  Nothing huge, but something we want taken care of NOW, on our schedule, rather than later, on an immediately can't-live-here schedule!

Which means sewing upstairs is a no-go.  Listening to music or podcasts is a no-go.  (Well, not with headphones as I prefer!)  So I'm doing downstairs things.  (But I may resort to bringing the sewing machine downstairs, as I can't not sew a whole day off work, can I?  Is that even allowed?!)

Anyways...

In my last post, I mentioned starting a new Christmas quilt.  Because one this year is obviously not enough.  I decided to start with the tree blocks and pulled a LOT of greens from my stash.  I wish I had taken a photo of that, but I got so excited (and worried) about cutting all those pieces, I forgot!

What I do have is a photo of all the "lost" corners, along with the tree parts at a somewhere-in-the-middle point of construction...

There are a LOT of lost corners there and I have no idea what they will become, but it seemed shameful to toss them.  (The oranges are from the Bear Paw quilt I did a few months back and are being used as leader-enders, but also have no real destination yet.  Perhaps they will meld and become one quilt?!)

I played matchy-matchy with the tree parts and made sure no block got too many of the same fabrics (I used up a lot of greens, but many parts were cut from most of those pieces before they were exhausted) and then got busy sewing.

Boy do those blocks take a lot of time for as simple as they seem!

A lot of fabrics in there I like, but they are not usually the palette I choose, so this was a good opportunity to use them up instead of feel guilty about their continued presence in my stash.  Have no fear, the green stack is still trying to climb out of the cupboard by itself, but this is helping tame it a little!

And then I went on to make a second.  Which, due to the hubby arriving home from work meetings and wanting dinner, I was too distracted and rushed (I might have been hungry, too...) to take a photo of that second one.  But for now, you can use your imagination.  It is very similar to the first.

The Nova Star blocks, since I am quite a chunk ahead in the official quilt-along schedule, have taken a back seat this week.  I haven't sewn any on them, but I hope to change that soon.  Remember this weekend is my at-home quilt retreat and I have three days where the hubby knows better than to expect much from me!  (I have planned some crock pot dinners, so he won't entirely starve.  And neither will I!)  I'm getting excited, but also nervous.  Since this is entirely online, there is a technology factor there.  I've been playing around with our tablet (which rarely gets any attention) to get more comfortable with it (just different enough from the smartphone and desktop computer...) before the event happens.  But I've told myself that the worst case scenario is that I sew alone for three days without technology.  It could be much worse!

(And before you even THINK it - we have a generator that runs a few outlets.  So I'll just move my sewing machine accordingly!  I still may not have internet or lights in my bathroom, but I'll have a sewing machine and iron!  And the crock pot can hang out nearby.)

But since this post is getting wordy, let's see a few Nova Star blocks together!

They're ones you've already seen, but you can see here how rotating every other block 90 degrees gives you a secondary pinwheel.  There will be narrow sashing and cornerstones, too, but you still get the effect here without having to witness my ugly carpet.

And last but not least, the hubby and I were out looking at smart televisions (he is debating dumping our satellite TV and going for something like Amazon prime) and I came across this fancy-looking stereo that PLAYS CASSETTE TAPES!

A few years ago, a power surge killed my old stereo and I was so sad.  I could easily buy a little boom box that played CDs, but I have an equally large collection of cassette tapes and I would love to be able to listen to them some days.  So this went home with us without much of a thought.

But I haven't used it yet!

Once I wrestled it out of the box, read a variety of more-or-less useless instructions, and fought the cats every step of the way, I found the power cord was about 12" too short to reach the nearest outlet from where I have a space for it.  So I just said "whatever, later" and walked away.  I'll snag an extension cord with groceries tomorrow and get it all squared away, but since I've been working a lot of the past week (boss scheduled me, so that means she needs me...and I get paid!), it hasn't bothered me much.  But I definitely want to have it figured out before retreat!  It has a radio, CD player, cassette player AND record player and is all able to be connected via Bluetooth!  So I can do ALL of that without cords!  (But if you hear loud swearing, it might be me trying to figure it out...)

And that is all the interesting news here.  I'd better get my behind in gear if I'm going to get much else done before the hubby gets up from his third-shift sleep!  I promise more photos next time - I'll have "been" at retreat!

Happy quilting!

Katie

PS Gabby finally saw the vet last week.  She cried there and back, but otherwise was a good little kitten.  She weighs 10 pounds, but I assure that is 95% muscle and 5% brain smarts.  She is very petite, but very agile and strong.  She has some nasty teeth that we will address at a later date, but she has forgiven me for my torture and we are already back to normal.  For all the trouble it took getting her there, I kinda feel like she should have taken longer to forgive me!  But I'm glad, too.