still zigging

Tags

audiobooks, roy g. zig, string fever, washi dress

I’m back from Phoenix and East TN…

and I spent Thursday and Friday working like mad to finish the last 22 blocks I needed for my “Roy G Zig” quilt. The top has to be done by Friday to enter in Rachel’s String-A-Long contest/giveaway! I was worried but now I think I might make it. (Though really, I think my Sunday Morning quilt also qualifies.)

A revelatory sidenote: though these blocks are super-fun and -relaxing to make, there are a lot of them to crank through (I made 56 for a throw size). When I held my 100th post giveaway a few weeks ago, I asked people to recommend a book. Several folks recommended listening to audiobooks while quilting. Beth @ Plum and June recommended, in particular, Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic, which, frankly, did not sound like my kind of book at all, but I gave it a try and it. was. so. awesome. It’s about the assassination of James Garfield, but is so fascinating. I probably made 20 blocks before it ended!

Then, on my own, I found Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, available as an audiobook from my library through Overdrive, which I’d meant to read after enjoying Gone Girl last summer. I’m 3/4 of the way through and told my husband last night that I wished I had more laundry to fold so that I could finish listening to it instead of watching TV. Yep.

I love quilting, but have been a little sad that it’s cut into my reading time. Audiobooks, though–you can cut, sew, iron, whatever. Awesome. Do you listen to audiobooks while you sew? Do you have any specific recommendations? (I’d be especially interested in hearing about books you think are good AUDIObooks–some are much better than others.)

/pointless interlude. Here are my Zig blocks laid out:

I’m supposed to give this away, BUT. We’ll see!

Also on the strong-a-long front: Marla @ Sew Hungry wrote an awesome String-A-Hex block tutorial that I’m hoping will help me eliminate this pile:

 

This is way more string scraps than I thought I’d be left with after finishing 56 Ziggy Strings blocks! They’re mostly uglies, so I am super-ready to part ways with them. String-A-Hex next?

Well, after I do some more Washis.

 

Top print is a Kokka strawberry print from Trefle, which I bought from Pink Castle’s Skinny Sale (holy moly, an insane deal I got on this stuff, and it already came!). It’s going to be a Washi for my mom if I have any self-control at all. Bottom print is from Sew Fresh Fabrics, and it’s a Lizzy House Constellations print. For another me-Washi. 🙂

Enjoy your long weekend! I hope you are doing better than picking paper off zig blocks while it is 45 degrees and raining cats and dogs. Not that I know anything about that.

roy g. zig

Tags

roy g. zig, scrap attack string fever, string fever, string quilt

Minutes after I hit “publish” on my last post (“happy Marathon Monday”), my brother texted me from Tennessee: “please tell me you didn’t go to watch the marathon today. don’t freak out, but…”

While I have very little right to freak out about what we are apparently calling the “Boston bombing” (!!!! my city! in the name of an “x horrible situation”), I am shaken. We live 15 miles north of the Tobin Bridge, and Nate works in Ipswich, not in the city, so we are far out of any potential danger. But there’s something about seeing reporters broadcasting from streets I USED to walk every day when in I worked in publishing (on Berkeley St.), seeing destruction on the sidewalks in front of my former dentist’s office, the bar where I used to go with my fellow EA’s for cheap waffle fries, hear about the Atlantic Fish Co where I’ve eaten oysters and swilled sauv blanc…

and that’s not even the library, where I’ve also spent a good deal of time. If you’re not safe in front of the Boston Public Library, where ARE you safe?

I’ve never not felt safe in Boston. And really, I still feel like this is a very safe place to be. I’ve told lots of people that I feel like this city is filled with good people, people who won’t watch you struggle and fail to react. People who WILL help you lift your stroller onto the T. Or who will help you decide whether to get off at Park or Copley, even if you’re calling it “Cope-ly.”

Turns out when I’m mad and sad, starting a new project is pretty much the ticket to helping me feel just a little better. And a rainbow project! Well. Color always makes ME feel a little better about my world.

18 blocks done, out of 56. Using Rachel’s tutorial (so.fun.and.addicting.) How could I resist? Calling it Roy G. Zig. (“Big Zig” might also have worked?)

lotta things

Tags

celery cardi, low volume, moth cardi, string fever, sunday morning quilt

(That’s Lucy’s new “thing” to say: we make a verbal list, colors, animals, whatever, and she goes, “Lotta things!” Gotta love a two-year-old.)

My Sunday Morning quilt is in the floor, ready for smoothing and basting. Why, yes, I WILL write a blog post to put off the agony of smoothing-basting for just a few more minutes. Bound for more straight-line quilting. Cannot. let. it. go.

Sleeves on my Moth Celery cardi are…done-ish. They’re probably as as done as they’ll ever be. Yeah they’re rough. And also! Knitters! Do you see my egregious error!? If I finish this thing without trashing it I’ll own up to my horrifying/embarrassing mistake. I lost a whole night of sleep over this cardigan last weekend.

(And no, I’m NOT going to frog. The thing is MOHAIR. It won’t frog for crap. I’ll finish it and wear it as penance.)

Plucky yarn that is too nice for bad knitters, purchased in the triumphant post-cabling-shawl-knitting adrenaline rush of early March. Now I think I probably should be punished with some acrylic Joanns yarn.

Fabric pull for the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild’s first Block-of-the-Month raffle. (Bring a buck and a block, the more bucks-blocks you bring, the more entries you get, winner gets the blocks.) We’re making these!

You’re planning to kill your string stash with Rachel @ Stitched in Color’s Scrap Attack String Fever, right? I know I am. Hoping to use her tutorial for ziggy string blocks, but need to do a block or two first before I know for sure. And I think my Sunday Morning quilt technically qualifies, too!

Hope you have a “lotta things” on your Monday too. Happy Patriot’s Day/Marathon Monday!