The Perverseness of the Universe

Good morning, Superfriends!

As many can attest, once a person makes a decision about things, the universe shifts, and those goals are no longer so easily reached.

Naturally, once I decided my goals - life happened. 

I haven't given up on them - oh, no... I'm far too stubborn for that!  But it might take me a wee bit longer.  So be it.  I am stubborn.  Seriously stubborn.  And so I am NOT going to quit.  Nope, not this girl.  I have better things to do than quit.  Sometimes, life makes it a challenge, but really... what would life be without a challenge?

In the meantime, we've fired up the old testing schedule at work, so there's less free time until, oh... January.  Hooray!  (Overtime is good money, right?)  I enjoy the testing part in some ways, but it does take up my time!  We're probably working 6 days a week until December.  And of course, now is the time that my brain goes "Oh, hey!  I've got these lovely ideas for a quilt!  You should totally make these!" 

I would love to make a steampunk hippo quilt.  I haven't figured out how yet, but it's percolating in my brain, along with the other new things.  My list is growing and growing! 

But, I am still plugging along, working as I can.  If I listed all the quilts I have in planning stage, I would just be overwhelmed.  I DO have a list, but it's kept on a spreadsheet for my sanity.  Right now it's sitting at 98 quilts in various stages: planned, designed, in process or done.  17 of those are done.  Currently I am sitting at 18% completion.  I keep shooting for higher.  Eventually.  Maybe.  :)

I am also testing one of my patterns for accuracy.  I want to see if it can get accepted in a quilting magazine, so I wanted to be certain it would do!  And, since I was making a test piece, I decided to do something a little different.  A little more modern.  It looked muddy until I added the blue.  I intended to go all black and white, but I think I have too much grey.  The blue helps, though!

So that's what I've been up to, superfriends!

What's up in your worlds?  What's currently challenging you?  Does life get in the way of quilting and crafting?

S

Inspiration photos and such

We went to the zoo in San Antonio... got to go to a short talk about condors.  It was amazing!  They have two, and they have bred in the past, but no longer.  Apparently they got a condor divorce.  :)  They live in two different exhibits now; we got to meet Daisy.  She is being trained to follow a certain stick so they can move her into her cage when they need to.  She doesn't fear humans - she was raised by them, so she has a tendency to want to play instead of get in the cage.  Can't say I blame her!

One of the other things we noticed at the zoo was the number of statues that you can actually climb on!  They have little signs warning that the metal statues can get hot in the Texas sun, but other than that, have fun!  I thought that was amazing!

One of my favorites was this one:

 

Steampunk hippos!  They were adorable!  The live hippo had a new (to me) exhibit behind glass so you could watch it swimming around, but he was having his breakfast while we were there.  The old hippo enclosure is now for a capybara and a tapir. 

 

 



This is at the Japanese Tea Gardens - looking almost straight up into the top of the pavilion.  It was amazing.  I wish I had a better camera to grab better shots, but this one isn't too bad.  I'd love to recreate this in a quilt - the beautiful geometric pattern and the different shades of wood.  It's like looking up into a flower unfolding above. 

 

The pavilion from ground level - it's amazing.  Everything is limestone from the quarry the Tea Garden is located in, and it's chaotic and orderly both at the same time, organic and formal.  It's an amazing balance, and I adore it!

 

I did indeed work on Boston Molasses - got another complete row of quilting done - both parts of the "wave" of molasses, so I am reasonably pleased.  Got it rolled up a little more and started the next row of "wave" as well.  So far, so good.  Now for shower and working on pineapple.  (Not a real one, a stuffed one for a luau at work).

 

Thursday in the Forge

Good evening, superfriends!

In my efforts to get more done this year, I have gotten (gasp) organized!  Each project still in the piecing stage has a box.  Oh, boy....

And I've at least gotten caught up on my December block swap.  Now I can start the January one with a clean conscience.  (I am so sorry it took so long, Carol!!) 

I'm halfway through quilting BST, and should be able to show pics of it soon.

But for now, I have a cropped sneak peek for Carol's block.  It's really a little more purple-y than it shows here, but I wound up liking the block!

 

 

Hopefully she will too!