As you can imagine, I've been completely swamped (*rolls eyes*) by dealing with the flood in our basement the past week. Plus, the flood happened just as I was in the trickiest part of setting up a new website for my quilt guild Rouge Valley. I've been stretched to the limit for several days now. The flood remediation process has been quite difficult, and punctuated by a trip to the emergency room for my dad's heart. So it's been pretty stressful all around.
The only vaguely stitchy thing I've been doing is knitting. The front and back are done on the Paisley Sweater, and I'm halfway up the first sleeve. I can't say when I'll be able to organize a photo, though.
Two weeks ago I was thinking that my "sewing machine holiday" has not been the greatest success. I have not enjoyed it. I really enjoy handwork as a break from working on the machine, but just handwork all the time became tedious pretty quickly. So that's good to know.
Of course, I haven't had time to be bored since the flood. Nature always fills a void! From now on I'll be more careful about leaving one. ;)
Serious fun with quilting, stitching, and embroidery
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
Flood!
Our basement flooded this morning. Fortunately, it was not widespread, but unfortunately, it was right where I keep my stash!
I woke up to heavy rain, and when I looked outside the street was flooded, so I went straight down to the basement. The usual problem areas looked ok, but then I heard water rushing in the room where I keep my stash. I'm sure you can imagine my horror when I saw that the window well (like the one in the photo) was completely full of water. It was gushing through the seams in the glass and literally falling in a little waterfall down my plastic storage bins.
So much water fell so quickly that our neighbourhood storm sewers were completely overloaded, so all the water from the eavestroughs and window wells had nowhere to go. On the side of the house that flooded you can see how the water was running over the grass:
Fortunately we were able to bail out the window well just as the rain was slowing down, so the damage seems confined to just the one room. Thank goodness for the plastic bins, because it doesn't look like any of my stash was damaged, even in the bins that were directly under the waterfall. Several other cardboard boxes were damaged, but I don't think I had anything too fragile in them. The carpet will probably have to be removed, and maybe the plywood subfloor as well. Fortunately again, it was just rainwater and not sewage, otherwise this would all be another story!
There's nothing like a minor disaster to make you realize that you have too much stuff. Hopefully this will motivate us to do some clearing out!
I woke up to heavy rain, and when I looked outside the street was flooded, so I went straight down to the basement. The usual problem areas looked ok, but then I heard water rushing in the room where I keep my stash. I'm sure you can imagine my horror when I saw that the window well (like the one in the photo) was completely full of water. It was gushing through the seams in the glass and literally falling in a little waterfall down my plastic storage bins.
So much water fell so quickly that our neighbourhood storm sewers were completely overloaded, so all the water from the eavestroughs and window wells had nowhere to go. On the side of the house that flooded you can see how the water was running over the grass:
Fortunately we were able to bail out the window well just as the rain was slowing down, so the damage seems confined to just the one room. Thank goodness for the plastic bins, because it doesn't look like any of my stash was damaged, even in the bins that were directly under the waterfall. Several other cardboard boxes were damaged, but I don't think I had anything too fragile in them. The carpet will probably have to be removed, and maybe the plywood subfloor as well. Fortunately again, it was just rainwater and not sewage, otherwise this would all be another story!
There's nothing like a minor disaster to make you realize that you have too much stuff. Hopefully this will motivate us to do some clearing out!
Monday, July 23, 2012
Banner Corners and Borders
As I mentioned yesterday, I finally realized in April that I had to simplify the design for my banner, because I still wanted the stitcheries themselves to be the focal point. These little 2" finished square-in-a-square blocks were an idea that I had rejected early on. But when I looked at the stitcheries I realized that the designer Jim Shore had put different blocks in each corner of his borders, so I could make my blocks more interesting by varying the colours! I went to my stash and pulled the fabrics to match the stitching.
I mentioned a few days ago that I planned right from the beginning to use Flying Geese around the sides of the stitcheries. I also planned all along to do them in green and yellow, echoing the colours of the top border which are consistent on all three pieces:
But during my final design phase in April I worried that green and yellow would be too high contrast, too busy, and therefore distract from the stitcheries. I went to my stash looking for two shades of green instead, and found these:
I really, really love this fabric combination! The small print against the big one, the slightly warmer geese versus the cooler background, the geese are defined without being "in your face." These sections will finish at 2" x 6" each. I am foundation paper piecing them, which I did for the corners as well, using my own home made foundations copied onto vellum. They are quite slow to sew, but at least the points are perfect! There will be 10 in all. Here's a preview of how it will all look together:
Imagine if I had gone ahead with those stumpwork daisies! This is so much better.
I took advantage of a break in the humidity last week to piece these side sections, but I still have six left, so I think it will still be a while before this is finished. I have found, though, that I stay cooler working on something small like this, rather than trying to manage large pieces of fabric and long seams.
There will also be a little bit of needleturn applique in the triangle at the bottom. Hopefully I'll be able to show you that soon!
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