Sewing, and the terror of the runway

As I mentioned in my last post, I participated in a garment sewing contest that culminated in a fashion show at Sew Expo last weekend. I didn't win :(. But here are pictures from backstage before the show.



Eventually, there are going to be clips and pics from the runway show itself on the Bernina website. I'll let you know.

I thought I was going to be cool on the runway, but I kind of freaked out. I think I forgot to breathe, and I felt like I made funny faces the whole time. The show was well attended (maybe 100 some odd people), and the runway was very long and very tall. I could have given a speech in front of that crowd with no problem, but just walking back and forth while they looked at me gave me hives.

In other sewing news, at Christmas 07 I promised my mom a queen sized quilt for her bed. Because I lack common sense, self-preservation, and good judgment, I picked a kind of crazy complicated quilt block to use, and a size that required 90 of the blocks. Then I made my life worse by deciding to do complicated sashing. I'm chipping away at it. The blocks are all assembled into horizontal rows, and the sashing strips that go between are also assembled. I've got 4 out of 10 rows put together. My photography efforts were somewhat hampered by my little helpers.



Life has otherwise been pets, work, and cursing the weather. The usual, you know?

Quilting oops

I finally got around to resuming the mystery quilt, Carolina Crossroads, that I started last year. I have all the sub-units done, so now I'm just putting it together. I ran into a hitch with the 16 setting triangles. They're supposed to look like this:

15 of mine looked like this:

and one of them looks like this:

In my defense, the directions I was following did have a picture with the incorrect assembly. There was also a picture of the RIGHT way, but I managed to follow the wrong one. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Kidd the terrier continues to make himself right at home.

And Callie has colonized the plastic box I keep by my sewing machine for scraps.

Annual knitting retreat

I spent the weekend in Portland (well, Troutdale, really) for my annual knitting retreat. I'm in an internet-based group that's been together for almost 6 years. We try to get together in person once a year, and this time we met up at the McMenamins Edgefield. It was, as ever, delightful. I totally forgot to pack a camera (as ever). We spent most the weekend camped out in one of the public areas of the Edgefield, the library. As groups of people walked by, we'd often hear a whispered "Knitters!", as if they'd just spotted a rare species in the wild.

I meant to diligently work on projects. My chosen big project was this sweater, which has been in cold storage for about a year and a half:


The back and 1.6 of the fronts are done. I made some good progress on that second front this weekend, until we all went out shopping on Saturday. We hit Knit/Purl in downtown Portland. Nice store, really nice staff. I was seduced by some blue yarn. Blue, people - not red or pink. Be amazed. There was only one skein of the blue I really loved, so I bought it a couple of coordinating little friends. Anyway, despite my good intentions to work on the sweater, I ended up casting on the blue.

I'm making a stole knit lengthwise in feather and fan. I quickly discovered that it's a really easy stitch pattern to screw up, and now there are markers between every one of the 20 pattern repeats.

In my absence, Kidd the terrier scaled the gate to come upstairs and get closer to his kitty friends. He also managed to wiggle under the bed in an effort to make friends with Callie. She was not amused.

Life as adjunct faculty

R.I.P.

A Tragic Demise
Dear friends, we're gathered together today to mourn the passing of Melinda's first pair of hand knit socks. Let's have a moment of silence.

The socks gave 5 years of noble service in the face of machine washing (and sometimes drying) and being stuffed into an assortment of boots, shoes, and clogs. While the Koigu remained colorful to the last, it finally succumbed to wear and tear. The socks asked that they be allowed to pass peacefully, with no extraordinary darning measures taken.

Farewell, pink socks.

Still Running
I have no idea how or why, really. I'm now on my third week, except that I'm still doing the first week of the couch potato program because, well, I'm pathetic. Today I managed to time it so that I was out running during the heavy late morning snowfall. The snow promptly melted off, so I didn't really get the fun Abominable Jogger effect that I was hoping for when I came home. Well, I was abominable in the since of sucking at jogging, but not in the snow covered way.

I'm going to try to advance to week 2 of the program on my next run, in large part because I'm sick of the music on the first podcast.

And a final note
I'm with Rudy on appropriate behavior in late January.

moar funny pictures

Help a good cause

I was reading Vickie Howell's blog, and she pointed the way to a very important and worthwhile contest/fund raising venture. As Vickie says,

My friend, artist Bernie Berlin and the legions of furry friends she continues to help, need your support. You may remember her organization A Place to Bark from last year's pattern for dog ears to benefit the the horribly mistreated pup, Noel (who now has a happy home, thanks to Bernie!) Well, this year she's trying to win a matching grant for 50k to build a shelter for abandoned and abused dogs and cats. Through a massive grass-roots campaign she's in the front-running to make it happen, but she's not there yet! Please take a moment to read about her effort--including the 500 pets she's saved, and what you can do to nurture this amazing woman's passion for rescuing animals by meeting this financial goal.

The way the contest works, Bernie needs as many INDIVIDUAL donors as she can get to stay in the running for the big $50K. The minimum donation is only $10. Visit Bernie's blog and click on the blue badge to donate (they take PayPal or credit).

A Place to Bark rescues dogs (and cats) from high-kill shelters in the south. Trent and I moved to Seattle from South Carolina 8 years ago, but the memory of visiting the county animal shelters there 9 or 10 years ago (when Trent ended up acquiring Rudy) is still burned in my brain. As Bernie points out in her video (available just above the big "donate" button), some of the shelters she gets dogs from have a 98% euthanasia rate. If she can win the big prize, she'll be able to build a real shelter and increase her spay and neuter programs.

So, please please please if you can spare $10 for a good cause, go donate.

Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt

My life is so empty, boring, and full of free time that I decided to add another project. (That's sarcasm, y'all, in case that wasn't clear.) I'm a fan of Bonnie Hunter's fabulous website and blog. She started a quilt project and was persuaded to turn it into a mystery quilt sew-along, now called Carolina Crossroads (because she's in the middle of moving from SC to NC). The Yahoo group for the project ballooned up to 700+ members in 4 days - that's a lot of quilters. Holy cow.

Bonnie's all about using stash and scraps. The mystery quilt needs a light, a dark, and an accent. I'm using pink, black, and red, mostly from my stash, although I will admit that I bought a few more pinks to round out my collection.

Step 1 was to make 100 3.5" rail fence blocks, using dark/accent/dark. Here are mine, stacked into groups of 10 for ease of counting. As you can see, I'm using an extremely liberal definition of black and red.

Step 2 requires making 100 "accent in one corner" blocks, again 3.5". I'm up to 31 finished so far. They're a little fiddlier than the rail fences to get together.

I've been suffering from a lot of "help" in this process.

I really need to be working on some Christmas present projects, but I just can't seem to rip myself away from the mystery quilt.