Feather Boot Camp 2010

Posted on January 27, 2010 by Suzanne

Despite evidence to the contrary lately, my main interest in life is actually machine quilting. (I think my neglected quilting machine heard that and said “yeah, right…”)

Ahem.

Really, it is. (OK, and that doesn’t include my husband and children, but I think you know what I mean.)

Anyway.

In 2 weeks, I’m going to be proving my love of machine quilting in general and feather quilting in particular, to a new crop of students in my next session of Feather Boot Camp. If you are a machine quilter that wants to work on perfecting your Freehand Over the Top Feathers, I’d encourage you to check out the details of my class. The class is online: and it’s a really great experience, if I do say so myself. You get e-mails from me every single weekday, you get handouts to read, drawings to trace, videos to watch (I do drawing screen captures as well as videos of quilting stitch-outs), and tons and tons of feedback and interaction with me and the rest of your classmates.

The best part, of course, (well, other than spending 5 weeks with me at your feathery beck and call…) is that you can do all of the classwork at your convenience: in your jammies at 2 in the morning, if necessary.

Check it out!

Feather Boot Camp

Knitting a scarf

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Suzanne

I tried to think of a more exciting title, but nothing came to me.

As you probably guessed from the title, I am, indeed, knitting a scarf. I’m using Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky in Black, with some Brown Sheep Company Lamb’s Pride (a wool/mohair blend) in Strawberry Smoothie.

I’m using size 7 needles, and it is turning out to be a very fast knit (for me, anyway…). I’ve got 26 inches down, I’m think I’m going for about 72 total.

It’s a pretty simple 1×1 rib, with a slip stitch edge. I basically used the instructions for the Noro Silk Garden scarf that was (is?) a big craze, except I’m obviously not using Noro Silk Garden, nor am I striping the whole thing. I was worried the 1×1 rib would drive me crazy (ribbing on hand-knit socks makes me a little bonkers), but…I’m not crazy yet. OK, crazier…

I did teach myself how to do a Tubular Cast-on, which is pretty cool, and when I finish I’ll have to figure out how to do the matching Tubular Cast-off. My cast-on is not beautiful, but it was my first time, I assume I’ll improve with practice…

The scarf coordinates with the mittens my Mom made, though it occurs to me that i don’t have a picture of those right now. I’d go get them, and take a picture, but that seems like too much work at the moment.

Shop Update aka Yes, I’m still Alive, just buried

Posted on January 24, 2010 by Suzanne

Whew. I don’t have any concrete numbers yet on how many yards sold (many), or how many bolts emptied (a lot), but every yard out is one less yard to move home. I’ve been thinking that all along, not realizing that even though I didn’t have to move it home, I had to move it to the post office…

I guess the point is not having to make room for it at home, an adventure that’s already started with some moving of furniture, and a stack of boxes that I have to put some stuff in so that Mark can start working on dismantling the built-in cabinets in my current sewing room.

Thanks to everyone that has bought a little bit (or a lot…), or has signed up for the drawing, or shared the news on their own blogs and in other ways. I was going to spend today getting caught up on the drawing entries, but…I sat on the couch knitting and ended up being there for 3 hours, most of it fast asleep.

There is still plenty of fabric (and yarn! knitters! I have yarn, too!), and while I’m not quite caught up to same-or-next-day shipping, I’m getting closer. I did add some fat quarter bundles to the shop — Stash Enhancers in several different color families. If you order ONE, I can guarantee they’ll all be unique, if you order more than one, you might get some repeats.

The knitting I tried to do earlier is something new, I’d take a picture, but the light is impossible, especially because the item I’m knitting is black…

Speaking of light! We saw the sun and blue sky today. It was awesome. Plus, we didn’t get snow. That was awesome.

I think that’s all I know for now. I hope to get back to more interesting blogging really soon.

TTFN-

Suzanne

p.s. I’ll accept giveaway entries all week!

Wow, I’m so honored. Not.

Posted on January 22, 2010 by Suzanne

Every few days I glance through my e-mail spam folder, because while it works really well (I rarely ever have something show up in my inbox, Google Mail is awesome that way…) sometimes it catches things that aren’t really spam (like…questions about classes at MQResource…)

Today, I was really disappointed to see that it had marked this one as spam:

Dear Suzanne,

You were recently chosen as a potential candidate to represent your professional community in the 2010 Edition of Global Who’s Who.

We are please to inform you that your candidacy was formally approved January 4th, 2010. Congratulations.

The Publishing Committee selected you as a potential candidate based not only upon your current standing, but focusing as well on criteria from executive and professional directories, associations, and trade journals. Given your background, the Director believes your profile makes a fitting addition to our publication.

There is no fee nor obligation to be listed. As we are working off of secondary sources, we must receive verification from you that your profile is accurate. After receiving verification, we will validate your registry listing within seven business days.

Once finalized, your listing will share prominent registry space with thousands of fellow accomplished individuals across the globe, each representing accomplishment within their own geographical area.

To verify your profile and accept the candidacy, please visit here. Our registration deadline for this year’s candidates is January 31st, 2010. To ensure you are included, we must receive your verification on or before this date. On behalf of our Committee I salute your achievement and welcome you to our association.

Sincerely,
John Franklin
Vice President, Research Division

Cause it’s totally true, right? I’m totally that amazing and worthy of this achievement? My professional community would be proud to be represented by me, right?

I especially like how the word “APPROVED” is in italics, as if it makes it that more important.

Yeah. Right. It was worth a good laugh, anyway.

What I did on my day off

Posted on January 21, 2010 by Suzanne

I had a whole bunch of things I should have been doing yesterday, but mostly I worked on this:

A few week’s ago, someone posted on their blog that they were going to be starting this quilt (and I wish I could remember who it was, so I knew who to blame…) and just had to have it. The book is from Blackbird Designs, it’s called When the Cold Wind Blows.

I started doing some of this as soon as I got the book, but spent yesterday finishing the cutting, and working on piecing.

That large applique panel with the stars was already pieced, I worked the square in a square blocks yesterday.

I’m still debating about the applique. The debate is hand vs. machine applique. It’s a question of which lifetime I want to have this finished in. This one? Then it had better be machine. THe next one? Yeah, the hand applique would be awesome but I’m notoriously slow at all. I love doing it, but it requires sitting in one place, and I don’t seem to be able to do that lately. Although, that’s really dumb, because I spend plenty of tiem sitting at the sewing machine, so…I’m not really sure what the problem with getting handwork done is.

I do really like the quilt, although I have to say that the Blackbird Designs style of pattern writing is not necessarily for the faint of heart, or for the type that needs to be told exactly what to do. That doesn’t sound right: the instructions are complete, but could be confusing. The way they list the yardage and then how they tell you to cut isn’t quite as…I don’t know. Obvious? Specific? Something. I’ll try to be more coherent tomorrow. I’m pushing my luck on my ability to type straight as it is.

Anyway. That’s what I was doing yesterday.

I also had to make supper for Mark’s birthday, and I had to make him a card. (It was his last-birthday-of-his-30s yesterday. He’s so much older than me, you know. OK, 18 months older, but from now until June, I get to pretend that he’s TWO WHOLE years older than me. Which is way older. And if you can unravel all of that, you can figure out how old (young?) I am, too.)

His card read:

Happy Birthday to You

You live with some monkeys

They escaped from the zoo.

The light was horrible. I tried to get a good “serious” picture of them as well, this was the best of what I took. It looks better here small than the full-res version does: