Catchy Name Needed

I said when I started copying these over here that I had done a lot of them, but there were more than I realized!

Friday quilt five

Feb 2, 2007

1. What's your favorite music to quilt by? A baseball game on the radio  :)

2. Do you have a favorite type/style/line of fabric? If so, what?  I guess I'd go with batiks

3. Have you ever purchased a kit (with pre-cut fabric & pattern)? I don't think I have. I own one that my mother gave me; I'll get around to doing it one of these days. It would make a good baby quilt.

4. What is your least favorite color to work with? Plain muslin beige.

5. What is the weather like today where you are at? Good enough for quilting? Well, it is cold and rainy, so it would be a really good day to stay home and quilt, if I wasn't at work!

Late Friday Five

Feb 10, 2007

1. What is your favorite night to watch tv? I don't know if I have one - there isn't anything I am all that crazy about these days.
2. Show off your favorite quilt picture. Well, since we're talking about crazy quilts, here's a block:

3. Do you own any wearable quilts? Nope. I'm chunky enough without any help.
4. Do/have you crazy quilted? I've done a few blocks. It's fun but I don't know if I'll ever finish anything. (also it gets very expensive if you get into silks and vintage buttons and so forth)
5. In December's Edition of the Quilter's Home it mentions quilting tattoos. Do you tattoo? No. Fear of needles.

Saturday five (again)

Feb 17, 2007

1. What color is your mood today? Let's go with blue. Possibly a more cheerful blue than it would've been yesterday.

2. List your quilting/sewing purchases for this week. Purchases? I don't need purchases, I have aninheritance. (A freaking huge one, where quilting is concerned, too.)

3. What new project (UFO) did you start? None. But I did work on the organizing some more.

4. Did you accomplish extra quilting time this week due to the weather where you are? No, didn't even (quite) freeze here.

5. Are you a member of calicocats or did you get this Friday Five from a friend? If you got it from a friend head over to calicocats and post your answers there as well! :D</lj></lj>   Oh, I'm a member. I think I've been one since day one.  :)

Friday five, back to the grind edition

Feb 23, 2007

(The title is because I'm back at work this week - sigh.)

1. Do you stay up late to finish quilting --- late, like 1-2am?  Not often - if I try to quilt when I'm tired I make mistakes. Like, really bad and/or stupid ones. It's not worth it.

2. What was/is your favorite quilting class? Hmm, I've enjoyed most of them. I seem to especially enjoy ones that aren't just about piecing - like Libbie Lehman's, and Melody Crust's, which is about coming up with your own quilting designs.

3. How many rotary cutting rules do you own? I can't possibly count because they're scattered all over the place, but at a guess I would say half a dozen. Possibly more.

4. Will you be watching the grammies Oscars this weekend? Always. Like somebody else said, my husband usually has control of the remote, but he loves movies and wouldn't dream of missing it.

5. What are your weekend plans? Buying a new (used) car! 'Cause my old one has gone to the great highway in the sky, or something like that. We have a loan pre-approved at the credit union and we are going shopping tomorrow. And Sunday I am taking a two-hour beading class. (And I also will have to make a trip over to my mother's house to oversee the extended family members who are going to be "cleaning up" over there. I don't trust them not to get carried away and throw away something that I want to keep!) I'm gonna be busy.

Friday again

Mar 2, 2007

1. What is your favorite day of the week? Friday, I guess - for the usual reasons. Weekend coming up and all that.

2. What's your favorite kind of fabric? Batiks. We'll go with batiks. I like a lot of kinds of fabric, actually.

3. Can you believe it's March already? Definitely not. I suspect that February 2007 is going to be the Lost Month in my memory.

4. What do you collect (besides fabric)? Junk.

5. Quickest project time (and picture please)? I tend not to do very fast projects. However, I guess this one qualifies: I decided to make crazy-quilted stockings for my co-workers a few years ago, and the seams are machine-embroidered. They were fast and they came out really cute.

Friday five

Mar 9, 2007

Friday five, again

Mar 16, 2007

1. What quilt/sewing project are you working on this week? I'm still in organizing mode. Also, I have a while to work on this, but I'm going to a retreat in late April and I need to start thinking about what I'm going to work on while there.

2. Show us a non-quilty picture (family, pet, house, garden)? Hmm, well, I think I used a garden picture a few weeks ago, so here's my husband instead. (I know a few of you have already seen this picture, but presumably a lot of people haven't!)



3. Do you believe in leprechauns? Um, no. I am generally something of a grinch about St. Patrick's Day, anyway. Particularly when people try to pinch me.

4. Have you been sick this winter? Yes. An awful lot. I had had a flu shot so instead I just had colds, one after the other.

5. Favorite quilting quote/saying. There's a quote about quilters being crazy because they cut fabric apart and then just sew it back together, which I like, but I can't remember how it goes exactly. (While attempting to google that, I came up with this page of general needlework & sewing quotes, which has some good ones.)

The Friday (Feet) Five

As you go back in time with these, I talk more and more about my mom, and "my mom's stuff" comes up a lot. If you don't know the history, she had died early in 2007, and I spent most of that year, off and on, cleaning out her townhouse. So that's why that looms so large here - "mom's stuff" has its own tag, isn't that sad?

Literary Friday five

Feb 1, 2008

1. Do you subscribe to quilt magazines (get them in your mail box monthly)? Definitely - they're much cheaper that way!

2. What is your favorite and why? It used to be QNM but they went downhill for a while. (And I haven't read one lately so I don't know if they've recovered.) I like Quilting Arts a lot for the artsy end of things. I'm not sure which one on the traditional side is my favorite these days - I like several of them.

3. Do you save all your magazines? No, I used to but they took up too much space. Nowadays I scan the stuff I'm interested in keeping.

4. Would you be interested in a magazine swap? I never thought about it, but maybe! How much does it cost to mail a magazine?

5. How many magazines to you purchase during a month (not including subscriptions)? Lately I've been buying a couple a month.

Oh, I haven't thought to pass this along: if you have a Sam's Club in your area, they have had quilting magazines mixed in with the rest of their magazines lately, and they're discounted quite a bit. So if you're too cheap to buy many at full price, like me, that's a way to get more of them without subscribing. And also, Amazon's 4-for-3 deal (basically, buy 3, get one free) is on single issues of magazines as well as paperbacks, and they also have quilt and craft magazines in their selection.

Embellished Friday five

(this one was already here on my LJ, which was what got me looking for the rest of them in the first place, so I won't copy-and-paste. The link should work.)

Chilly Friday five

Jan 18, 2008

1. What colors do you think of when I say "winter"? blue and white and silver, and combinations thereof (the icon notwithstanding)

2. What is your favorite winter bird? Um, I would say cardinals but we don't actually get them around here that I've seen. I live in a weird place. Sometimes in the winter I see white pelicans!

3. Have you ever done a "winter" specific quilt/project? No, but one of these days I want to. Something with a snowflake theme - although I really have no idea what!

4. Do you get snow where you live? Not usually. There was a legendary snowfall here on Christmas Eve 2004, but I was in Austin at the time and it didn't snow there!

5. Do you sew/quilt more during this time of year? Well, I've been sewing the last few days and I hadn't been before that, so I guess this year the answer is yes. Typically, I don't think so, though.

Friday five, miscellaneous edition

Jan 11, 2008

1. What quilty web site will you hit today? I'm trying not to buy stuff unless I really need it, so I guess the one I'm most likely to hit is my own: Quilts Galore

2. Have you done the FabShop Hop recently? I start it but I never seem to finish - however, as it happens, I was just griping about it yesterday - that's over here too (at the bottom of that entry). (I should, however, add that the not-finishing is a recent development and I have finished several times before and won things a couple of times!)

3. Do you have current project on your design wall (can you show us a picture)? This picture was taken maybe a year ago, at my mom's house - however, those same 9 blocks are up on the new design wall, with some space between them because my intention is to start cutting sashing. (The sashing is going to be cranberry-colored.)



4. Have you signed up for any swaps for 2008? No, I have sworn not to do any more swaps until I do something with the swap blocks I already have! (Like the ones above.)

5. Are your December decorations still up? Part of them, yes, but I'm working on that. I had two (small) trees up - one is down and one is still up but I've started taking the decorations off. By my standards that's doing pretty well!

Slightly-belated Friday five

Dec 8, 2007

1. Do you decorate you home with quilts? Theoretically, yes. Actually, so far, no. We haven't put anything on the walls since we moved. We intend to eventually, though. I had one quilt on the wall in the old apartment, and I also brought several home that my mother had on her walls, especially this one:


I'm thinking it goes over the dining table. I have some blue & white plates that might look good with it, too.

2. Do you make wall quilts for holidays decorations? I haven't so far, in 10 years of quilting. I have some more Christmas quilts in the planning stages, but up to now I've made exactly one Christmas quilt, and it was a lap quilt.

3. Eggnog or Hot Cocoa I don't like eggnog, so I guess cocoa wins by default. I'd rather have wassail, though!

4. Do you own any green/red notions? Except for pincushions, I don't think so.

5. Picture time - share an image of how you celebrate December (it can be anything)
How about nutcrackers?

(These were also my mom's, but are now on my china cabinet.)

Holiday Friday five

Nov 30, 2007

1. Do you have a holiday stash? Yes, a rather large one.

2. Do you use quilty related holiday items (cards, gifts, etc.)? Sometimes, if I think they're particularly cute. I don't use quilt stuff just for the sake of using it, though. (That said, my aunt is probably going to get something Jim Shore for Christmas!)

3. Do you have a wish list that you share with family and friends? Not usually on paper, but I do let my husband know what I have in mind.

4. Are you done with your holiday sewing/quilting? All I have is one thing to do (a binding), and no, I haven't done it yet.

5. Red/Green/Gold or Blue/White/Silver? I guess I'd go with blue/white/silver, but I like both.

I forgot to talk about Texas getting beat by the dreaded Texas A&M, but as you might deduce from the fact that I forgot, it didn't really upset me too much. I had already pretty much formed the opinion that this year's Longhorn team wasn't winning any awards, and frankly, my #1 concern as we were losing was that this would somehow save Coach Fran's job, because somewhere along the line I decided that I don't like that man. Luckily for me, he resigned after the game - which says to me that he was going to get fired no matter what, he just beat them to the punch. I don't know why I care, I pretty much believe, ascolumbina says, that all football coaches are petty megalomaniacs - and I have been around enough of them to know. But anyway, I did care a bit, for whatever reason, and he is gone from A&M, and we will just have to see who the next megalomaniac in line is. (I guess Mack's job is safe for now - at least I haven't heard anything to the contrary. We did win a national championship a couple of years ago, after all. But the heat is sure to be turned up just a little higher next year, just the same.)

I put the new (green) tree up today - I figured if I didn't it wouldn't get put up for two weeks, at least. It's not completely decorated but it has lights and a star and a lot of the older glass balls out of mine and Mom's collection, both - I love the vintage ones. I even have some that I bought on eBay, I like them so much. But the ones that are "family heirlooms" are even better. I'm also looking through my ornaments for stuff that I don't really love or just think I can part with, for whatever reason, and I'll probably take them up to work and see if people want them. I have an enormous collection of ornaments, have you figured that out? And I'm probably going to put up two trees - I still have the little white tree, after all, I'm thinking I will put it on the dining room table. It's smaller than the green one, although not by much. I'm pretty sure the two little trees together won't hold as much as our old big trees did, and I had enough ornaments to decorate a big tree with stuff still left over. So a lot of ornaments are going away. Which will make Rob happy, I think. I really do have too much Christmas stuff, I know that.

(Oh, my mother had an all-pink tree, I don't know if I've ever said that. I mean, the tree itself wasn't pink, but the ornaments were. And I brought some of them home, the ones that I like, and I am going to try doing the pink theme on the white tree, which seems like it ought to work. I may hate it but I thought I would at least try it out. If I don't like all-pink maybe I'll try all-pastel or something.)

Back to football - the Texans lost today (making them 5-6, so by Texans standards they're doing ok). I also watched a good bit of the Chicago-Denver game, which ended up being rather exciting, and just now I watched the end of New England game, which also had more excitement than just about anybody expected, I gather. I don't dislike New England the way a lot of people seem to (inevitably, under the circumstances), and in fact I was sort of happy to see them come back. I'm interested in seeing if they can really go undefeated. I think this was the closest anybody's come this year to beating them, isn't it? (Obviously I have not been following this all that closely.)

This weekend went really fast, even at twice the usual length. I thought maybe staying home so much would make it seem longer, but no. Still flew by. I do have a four-day week this week, because I'm going to Austin early Friday afternoon. Meaning I'll be packing to leave before I know it.

I did get some GuildWars in this weekend - not a lot, but some - and what I found was that I loathe playing games on that computer, and incidentally that I also hate playing at my mom's nice computer desk. The slide-out keyboard is too low, the desk itself is too high, so there's noplace that's at the right height to suit me. Which is ok, in the end, because both of those will be Rob's when the new computer gets here, and I can go back to playing on the little piece o'crap desk which is the only remaining piece of furniture that Rob had before we got married. It's not a bad little desk, actually, except that it needs refinishing, and more importantly it is starting to develop a crack across the top, probably from me pounding on it all the time! (But hopefully it won't fall apart completely any time soon - especially once it has my shiny new monitor on it!)

I didn't really want a laptop, incidentally. I know a lot of people love theirs, but I like playing at a desk. I have enough back and hip trouble without trying to play GuildWars on my lap.

I think I'm going to try plugging the old Dell in at the desk where the Compaq is, just to see what happens. I've already tried it in two different wall sockets, so I don't think that's the problem... but just in case. It's too late to cancel the new computer, even if it decided to work - but at least if it was to boot up, I could get my data off of it! (I have a save of everything crucial that's only 10 days old or so... but I would like to have some of the non-crucial things I didn't think of - like all my GW builds!)

I've been unnaturally silent, haven't I?

There's a whole entry bycolumbina that's pretty much All About Me, anyway! Or more correctly, it's about the two of us and how we interface in game situations. (Interestingly, I proceeded to melt down rather spectacularly last night. But I recovered and life - and gaming - went on.)

I have spent the last two weekends playing GuildWars pretty extensively. The first weekend was the Sneak Preview and I took Rima the Elementalist and played mostly with her. I got her most of the way through the Norn series of quests. I took some of the other characters into the beginning of the new game (which is called Eye of the North, or GW:EN - it's also an in-joke, because Gwen is also the name of a character who's been around in GuildWars from the very beginning), but nobody else went far into it. Then this Friday (the 31st) was the go-live date and so Col and I played all weekend, with his main character Kaeleen and my dervish Sharzad, mostly because Sharzad was the one who was in the right place to join up with Kaeleen at the time we started playing. (And leading indirectly to the problems described in Col's entry.) Despite the occasional clashes and fits of temper on both sides, we enjoyed it. It's not an easy game and it's not meant to be. But it's fun. It has some great bits of comedy in it, too. In-jokes, Monty Python jokes, Pinky and the Brain jokes, you name it.


Other than that, well, life goes on as normal. The top floor of my mother's house is empty except for some furniture. (I am keeping some of this furniture but at some point fairly soon, I'm going to have to figure out how I'm disposing of the stuff that nobody else wants.) We have finally got the last piece of her investments transferred over, which is something I was beginning to think was never going to happen. Now - there is always a catch - I have to decide how to invest it. I think I am over-thinking the investment question, and that in turn is sort of immobilizing me. It's an important decision, yes, but it's not a life-and-death decision. I need to relax about it, a bit.

Oh, I don't think I ever said here that we booked a trip to Las Vegas at Christmas. This will be our long-delayed 20th anniversary trip. We are leaving Christmas night - so we won't have to miss the family celebration - and staying 3 nights, I think it is. That's as long as I could persuade Rob to stay. It's long enough, especially since we're not coming back until really late Friday so we essentially have that whole day to fool around in Vegas, too. I booked us at Treasure Island but I might possibly change that if I find a good deal somewhere else. I had it in mind to stay somewhere that's sort of in the middle of the Strip, though. Years ago when I came the first time we stayed at the north end (at the Riviera), and a few years ago with the TUS group we stayed at the very south end (the Luxor). So the middle is the part I've never really explored. (Rob has no opinion on this, since he's never been before. His only opinions so far are that five days is too long, and that he wants to see topless girls. Men.)

It's 6:15, and I've been up for a while. I don't like getting up this early, but I woke up around 5 and was laying in bed making myself depressed, as I am wont to do, so I thought I would get up. What I really want to do is take the other half of my ambien from last night and sleep another 4 hours, but instead maybe I will go get breakfast somewhere, or at least coffee. (I am developing a bad Starbucks habit.)

I didn't do a damn thing yesterday except play Auto Assault.( And a bit of GuildWars. )