(detour from crafting)

but only so far as the pets, which is pretty much my secondary mandate, so i feel like that's ok.

so i bought this cat cylinder-like-bed-thing, back when we had sophie, and neither of our cats has ever shown the LEAST interest in it, which annoys me an unreasonable amount, because i think that it's pretty awesome, and i would like it if i were a cat, dammit! so i keep trotting it back out to try and make sequoia love it, because EFFING LIKE IT YOU STUPID CAT, essentially.

and we seem to have taken a turn:



but i shouldn't complain, because at least someone likes it? although i could REALLY do without the constant dirty look because REALLY, i could have thought of someone other than myself and gotten a reasonable size so that she doesn't have to curl up into her tiniest little ball to sleep IN the stupid thing...and also, her interest in it has increased the cat's interest, since he likes anything his big dog-sister is doing, which is also pretty adorable.

me and my shadow.

the dogfink is just LOVING having me at home, especially because i've been knocked out, which means LOTS of napping, which just so happens to be her specialty.



this is how i found her draped over me when i woke up this afternoon.


the only downside is that she's pretty sure i'm going to sneak off ATANYMOMENT, so has to follow about 6 inches (no really, she's RIGHT there) behind me wherever i go.

blogtoberfest, dogtoberfest

the dog has inspired today's blogtoberfest post because of her current insane crunching (she gets kibbles) and the fact that recently, she's been all over the map in her behaviour. she's been refusing to get up on the bed because she doesn't want to jump, and now she's taken the guesst bed to be her own personal queen-sized dog bed. she's been behaving just terribly towards other dogs while she's leashed, she's extra pathetic (even more than usual, if that's even possible...) when i'm doing anything that isn't paying 100% attention to her. i'm beyond frustrated. i think that mebbe he just needs some more attention, since i've been really quite busy lately, which makes me feel like a terrible pet owner, which i'm not, but still! at least it isn't monday, i suppose!

moving take 2 and 2.1

move #2 went well this morning (at least on our end, which is the only part i was a part of). j got off safely in her van o' stuffs, despite the weather's best efforts and some late help arrival. and then we have started move 2.1, which i smoving more crap in (a couch, a dining room table, a lovely antique china cabinet that will house my fabric) to fill the gaps where j's stuff used to be. so far, so good. we got the couch in, and my mum's going to bring a kitchen table tomorrow.

diamond-dog also arrived home from purgatory (aka that place with that puppy--the rents' place) happy to have been invited, and completely exhausted. we've moved things around a bit in the spare room and in the living room, and she's spent all afternoon testing various spots for their nap potential. so far, i think everything has passed since she's been asleep around the apartment for several hours now.

she also clearly misses j already. she used to hid her bone in j's closet, and she went to move it (from where it had been found in the living room while she was gone), and instinctively went to her usual stomping ground, which just ended up being a bit pathetic...





tonight, i think that i return to the february lady sweater. my sewing room is in a bit of a state of flux, and before i can start anything else down there, i will need to iron all the new fabric i got from pink chalk's sale last week, and i just don't have the energy for that.

yay!

no more sewing news to report, but mister man is home from a week away. diamond is so happy. she spent all night following him around and being generally completely in love with him, and is now all settled because the house is back to normal. oh, and i guess i'm pretty happy he's home too. :)

argh! then yay! then argh! again.

tonight was semi-productive in my little crafting world. less productive in my exercise and not eating everything on the planet world, but that's not the point here. so skipping exercise, and getting some pizza (gluten free, yum!) out of the way, i decided that the wedding quilt would not make itself and would just have to be smaller because i was no longer interested in remaking 6 or so blocks. good, i have lots of blocks and tend to way overshoot sizes anyhow because we (in my bed) are both coverhogs, and so quilts have to be HUGE to adequately cover us both, and still we manage to steal all the blankets from one another.

but i digress. counted my pile. 86 blocks, excellent. i'll make it 9x9 and that'll still be 108" square, perfect, fine, let's go. start randomizing the blocks. HOLY HELL THAT ONE HAS IRON MARKINGS ON IT FROM THE WATER. not sure where that came from because i was VERY careful with ironing them...because the blocks are white. k, k, it'll be fine, shout that shiz and keep moving, sew up a row...then come across another one with iron stains. YUK. quickly stop sewing to investigate further, hopefully there won't be more than 5 with iron stains since i only really need 81/86. thankfully there were only 3 in total, and so i managed. dog hassles for a bit, and finally settles in, sewing goes into full-on mode.




1/3 of the wedding quilt, all hanging nicely pressed!


i got three rows put together, seams pressed open, ALL of my threads trimmed (i assembly lined most of the piecing and didn't trim all my threads close--never again), happily putting things in order to get to bed, go upstairs and i notice the pizza box (the one with the leftover half of the expensive, yummy, gluten free pizza) tipped onto the floor. yeah, that would be the EMPTY pizza box on the floor. between the boy and the dog, i just am NOT destined to eat pizza for breakfast. she would not even come near me. i actually wish i'd gotten a picture of it. she sat on the third top step and had her head RIGHT at the edge of the stair and was just looking at me with one eye. VERY hard to keep my angry face on and not burst into giggles. such a self-satisfied little jerk.



literally a minute before i discovered the pizza carnage.

we came, we sewed, we napped.

diamond and i have been busy with no one around to whine at about being sick (me), wanting to go out and play (diamond) and wanting attention (me and diamond both).

we dog parked, ate, ran errands, sewed up some rows, napped, ate, dog park'd some more, and FINISHED THE QUILT TOP!!! i'm now kind of thinking that it might be nice to finish the whole thing for when the man's return. i mean, i have until friday, so it's doable, but i'm not sure that i want to rush that much...

the one where i'm a huge suckface

mister man is out of town for a whole week. A WHOLE WEEK! which would be good except i couldn't get to sleep last night at ALL. plus, the dog took it as an invite to hog the bedsheets...oh, and stay on the bed all night. and she's following me around like a shadow. so basically, we're both big suckfaces today since our man is gone camping. in the rain. :)

i want to say that i'm a clever monkey since i managed to make my puppers two beds for about $20 when one dog bed at the store is $50...AND i made my dad a SUPER CUTE clothespin holder for father's day (yeah, i'm pretty sure it's exactly what he wanted...but whatever. he didn't make any specific requests, so he gets what he gets!) for about $20, plus free stolen (from my dad's closet-HA!) hanger...but i forgot to take a picture of it when it was done, but it was SUPER cute.

so you'll just have to see pictures of the dog's super cute beds. the first one is for at my parent's house since the puppy got diamond's old bed, and diamond is WAY too much of a priss to sleep on the floor:





she dosn't look so impressed because i woke her up from her lazyboy nap to get down and try out the bed because i'd finished it. but she liked it ok in the end:





the second one is for my sewing room since she likes to be RIGHTTHERE in the action, but again..won't sleep on the floor. so far it's been a fine balance between her annoying the crap out of me and me caving and going to get her real bed from the bedroom and dragging it in. but no more!





my dad's clothespin holder came from a pattern on living creatively, which i thought was super cute. i ended up making it in blue and red plaid oilcloth which turned out well. and now i have an extra half-yard of oilcloth which needs some purpose. :)

today: working on my bedquil in white and green. possibly napping. possibly house cleaning on some scale, although that's definitely lower on the priority list. ;)

my grandmother's buttons.

took the day off work to rest before a stressful weekend and a MIL visit next week. my main goal for the day was to pick up my disastrous sewing area, which was mainly a success. now i've got to figure out one more small shelving spot and hanging up my rulers and cutting boards. and, i want to do something with my grandmother's buttons. they are housed presently, but not very nicely. i'd like to put them in jars or something, and then have them somewhere visible, but i'm quite sure what i'm doing with them, and i also don't have any shelving for them just now.





see how clean and lacking in shelving?!??

i've found the lovely kathy at pink chalk studio, which might actually be the cutest fabric store ever. waiting impatiently for my haul of *sale* YAY fabrics! also very important is the fact that she ships to canada AND that she ships to canada at an extremely reasonable price!

and, i decided tonight that for our trip this weekend, i need a small bag for my toiletries, so that's what i've been up to this evening. mister man didn't like the overall denim that i chose to use for the outside, but definitely liked the green i picked for the lining. denim is a recycled pair of overalls and the green is a reclaimed silky-ish scarf with some lightweight interfacing. going to figure out how my machine makes buttonholes for me, and then it'll be done and i'll be tucked up in bed.







all in all, a productive day, but i'm ready for another 10 hour night. :) which would be ok except that i come to bed to find these little scenes all set up for me.





the dog, in the span of me being in the bathroom brushing my teeth and washing my face, hid her bone on my laptop and dragged over the man's sweater to cover it. such a silly monkey that little dog is...

prezzies in the mail!

so not feeling at ALL super today--left work because i was having some anxiety rising issues and got home and am now feeling mega nauseated. but to make me feel a bit better, i got my package from my ravelry karma yarn swap partner, a lovely girl named curlie. it is just BOOOOOOOTIFUL, i can't even believe.





in here: misti baby alpaca, which is SOOOOOOOO soft and SOOOOOOO fat, i lurves. malabrigo--YUM. some local alpaca, LOVE me the local everything. LOTS of chocklits, which i shall hide from the boy and eat when i'm not feeling nauseated. they are from trader joe's, which i've heard lots about but still haven't quite figured out what it is comparable to in canada. sylvi, a pattern which i just got yarn for, but hadn't gotten the actual PATTERN--curlie must have read my mind. ;)

there was also a 6 pack holder from trader joe's for beeeeeer, which is HILARIOUS because here in ontario, you can get these same 6 packs for wine bottles at the LCBO, so this is a baby version of a bigger 6 pack holder i already have and use often! hahahahhaha--maybe too much booze? heck no!

and, of course, there was a lovely note which made me laugh, because i've been trained by my gran to read the note or card first, so i was all pawing through the package and guiltily saw/opened the note which said "open the yarnz first, then read this"...which I clearly did NOT need to be told twice and ripped into the package! :D

i also had this to deal with when i got home. she is terrifically sad because i'm not feeling well enough to play. she did, however, come and take advantage of my not feeling well to lick me all over the fact (which i don't normally put up with because she tends to try to lick in your mouth and all up your nose, which is pretty yuk...)





oh! and, not pictured: the dog treats that curlie sent for diamonddog. i swear that that dogfink has a sixth sense about these things. she heard the crinkle, jumped off the lazyboy, where i *swear* she was asleep, and then whined and wiggled while i fumbled to try to get the bag open.

other than that, not much crafting went on in my life this past weekend. we didn't end up taking hte trian to quebec city because it was booked, so we drove (read: i drove because mister man doesn't drive standard, which is what i gots in my car). i did a bit on the sleeve of the apple green shrug i'm making, but that's it. at stitch n' bitch last night, i started cutting on the mountains of fabric that i'm cutting for the back of my orangepeel quilt. i've picked a navy polka dot print, and this is what i've got done so far. not much considering how much i need to get done.





more crafting action tonight and this weekend. i need to cut out another approximately million nickels for the many swaps i'm signed up for. i need to get mailing on that, i think! i just LOVE getting mail, and sending out prezzies to new people. :)