Summer Seashore

I brought Summer Seashore down to the Cape for Chick Weekend.  It gave me the chance to show it to friends and family, as well as finding a good spot to photograph the whole thing.  It's a big quilt!  When I get home, I'll have to take photos of it on the bed.  Trust me, it is a queen sized quilt.  I like my quilts to have lots of overhang.



To give you a size perspective, I posed with it (all squinty-eyed in the bright sun).

BIG quilt.

Summer is Done

The summer quilt is done!  I added the label and clipped off the dangling threads on Labor Day.  But then I had no time to get it up to take photos.  It's a big quilt, and the one place I can hang it to photograph has good light only in the morning.  I'm hoping to photograph it properly this weekend.

As soon as I stitched the last stitch, I started working on two other sewing projects, then squeezed in a third.  This is ridiculous.  They're all small projects.  Yay.  I don't want to tackle a big project like this again for a while.

The bundle shot - why is this a popular quilt photo?

Loaf of Boadicea

We had a photo shoot this weekend.  Cannoli and Boadicea are not the camera-hams like Pinniped and Willow were.  They're not too hard to herd, but the noses don't tend to wave around as much.  Boadicea worked best when she was placed in something.  She has become such a loaf, and look!  she fit perfectly in my large bread loaf pan.

I placed the Boadicea Loaf on the deck so Rob could get some overhead shots.  Boadi decided she wanted out.  I'm surprised she got a good grip on that slippery glass.  Just look at that fat belly getting squeezed out over the rim of the pan!

Lots of Learning

Sea-themed quilting

Quilting my summer quilt has been quite an experience.  I haven't free motion quilted anything of this size before.  Heck - I haven't made a queen sized quilt since my first one in 2001.  Because this quilt has no batting, I was mostly interested in just tacking it down the front to the back.  So I didn't plan to densely quilt the whole thing - I mostly wanted to add some interest in the melon and cream colored sections.

In quilting this, I learned a bunch of things:

• Basting was a must.  I started with pins, and the first time I put it under the presser foot, I knew that was a bad idea. 
• Quilting gloves were a life saver.  I generally hate not being able to feel what I'm working on, but in this case, I was much happier being able to move the material where it needed to go.  Got a lot of mileage from a pair of $2 gloves.
  

Outdoors

Between the heat and my worry about ticks, Cannoli and Boadicea hadn't made it outside much this summer.  In fact, the last time they had gone out was just before the Spring Pignic.  Friday was a beautiful day, so I brought out the pen and let them loose.  The grass had filled in and was wonderfully green.  Both of them spent the afternoon wandering from one side of the pen to the other, eating as much as they could.  I know they've had a good time when they won't willingly get into the cozies when I come to collect them.

I had hoped the weather would stay cool this week for more outings, but it looks like we'll be back in the 90s again.  They'll have to dream of cooler days and green grass.

S’mores Rice Krispies Pinwheels

This was the week to try out new recipes.  When I found the Peanut Butter Cup Oatmeal Bars recipe, I spied a recipe for S’mores Rice Krispies Treats Pinwheels.

It's been a long time since I've made Rice Krispies treats.  These are souped up, with added graham cracker crumbs, Fluff and Hershey's chocolate bars.  Mine aren't nearly as pretty as the ones on Mom on Timeout.  Regardless, they're addictive.  It's hard to eat just one.  It's also hard to stay clean after eating one.  So if I'm going to get my fingers all sticky, I might as well make it worthwhile!

I think throwing chocolate chips into Rice Krispies bars is a lot easier and less messy than these pinwheels.  But if you want a delicious, wow presentation, I'd certainly give these a try.  You can find this recipe and other decadent treats at Mom On Timeout.

Jabbed

Cannoli shows off her bandaged left arm

Because Cannoli's tests from two weeks ago came back negative, we returned to the vet last week.  Noli's weight seems to have stabilized again, in the 860-880g range.  She's just too darned skinny.  At this point I'm grateful any time she stops losing weight for a few days.

This time we went for the dreaded blood tests.  Based on feedback and my own observations, I asked the vet to test for thyroid and lymphoma.  

First the vet palpated both Cannoli and Boadicea's thyroids, to see if Cannoli's had lumps or was enlarged.  (Boadicea was the control group.)  No difference could be detected; blood test was next.

It's Back!

Well, I feel a little foolish.  The sewing machine stickiness was because of the bushing, not the feed gears.  When I opened the bottom to clean out the feed gears, I must have loosened the needle.  That, in turn, hit the bobbin hook.  The notch in one of the gears wasn't contributing to anything.  User error created the similar symptoms as shredded gears.  Ugh.

Bad news?  I lost a week while my non-broken machine sat at the repair shop - and I looked pretty silly when I came to pick it up.  Good news?  A "cheap" repair and for whatever reason, it's running even better than before I brought it in.  Go figure?  The people who take in the machines were all doom-and-gloom; the repair guy tells me this is a great sewing machine that still has plenty of use left in it.  I hope so - we'll see how it does.