Beast!

Not even 200 mg of gabapenton will render this ferocious beast calm for a vet visit. However that dose PLUS creative use of a large bath towel with a hole snipped in it and a wee bit of calm patience meant I could provide the vet with a safe way to give Artan his annual exam and 3-yr rabies booster.

All credit for the bath towel plan and the mantra of "snout awareness" goes to Shelly Roche of Tiny Kittens TNR rescue in BC, Canada. It's thanks to her that we can give Artan his needed medical care without resorting to "happy gas" every time, which his internal organs thank us for. We will still have to use gas for bloodwork, xrays, and any future pre-surgical work (not that we anticipate any) but it's nice to be able to limit his exposure.

Last year we tried only 100 mg of the medication and it was like he'd never taken anything. And that was after letting it set in for a few hours. 200 mg is the magic dose for his 13.5 lb self and all his hatred of any human that isn't his mom or dad.

Artan was very happy to get home and be snuggled by myself and his favorite human, his dad. He was pretty high the rest of the evening and thus was even more cuddly with us than usual. Thankfully he wasn't drooling when he purred. Too much of that squicks the FuzzyHusband out... generally because he's the one being drooled on.

That was our adventure this week. With a little love and luck we shouldn't have to use our tricks again for another year.

See you next weekend!

We Survived!

The polar vortex has come and gone. FuzzyHusband, myself, and the critters hunkered down under bunches of blankets and didn't emerge from Tuesday afternoon until Thursday morning.

We probably should have informed Artan that pattern pieces are not blankies, but it's doubtful he'd have listened anyway. We also learned how many layers of garment leather my sewing machine will go through.

Thursday night I ended up with a fantastic chance to see a rescheduled concert featuring one of my favorite bands ever! I loved how the colored lights matched the colors for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's colors. Disturbed is very vocal in their support of people with both addiction problems and mental illnesses. It was gratifying to have a bunch of rock stars validating so many people who struggle every day.

Last night Whiskey City Burlesque hosted a fundraiser in the form of a Cards Against Humanity tournament. This quarter we chose our local crisis nursery as the beneficiary for our charity. We raised a lot of money and had a packed house. Many people brought physical donations as well. This was the most successful fundraiser yet! 

There were short performances in between rounds of the game. I managed to get a few pictures, but I was running around helping wherever I was needed.

I need to get back to sewing and trying to get some cleaning done before rehearsal tonight. We're gearing up for our next actual performance in April. See you next weekend!

All Kinds of News

First: it's NOT a hernia! I just have to keep taking it easy for a couple more weeks and the pain should fade. Pixel was so excited she had to pop out of the dehydrator's box.

Second: FuzzyHusband successfully made it to the originally planned snowshoe hiking/camping area with his friends and they're off the grid. You couldn't pay me enough to be on the shore of Lake Superior right now. No sir and/or ma'am! I hope they're having fun though. Two critters in particular are missing him though.

Third: We got a wee bit more snow here, but mostly had crazy winds. Thankfully I don't even need to brush snow off the driveway to get out. Most of it ended up in the back yard.

Fourth: I'm about to start in on this lovely little number for one of the burlesque dancers. If possible I want to take a muslin of the jacket to rehearsal tonight. But we all know how good intentions go.

Fifth: I'm now officially part of the burlesque troupe as a production member. This means I'll be able to actually say I'm part of the group and not just their occasional seamstress. One of the things I'll be doing for them is orchestrating their social media presence and helping the other production member with the website when he's unavailable. Once the website is done and live, I'll be linking to it on the sidebar.

That's all the crazy news here. How are things in your parts of the world? See you next weekend and stay warm!

Teaser Revealed and Cuteness

Remember this teaser from last weekend?

Well here's what I've done so far with it.

Originally this was supposed to be a single Dresden plate on a wall hanging, but the teacher in our class gave us the bright idea to turn it into a more utilitarian quilt with four Dresdens. Whoops.

My difficulty was the fabric I'd picked for the sunburst rays for the original singleton. It's an older fabric and I snagged the last fat quarter in the shop when I kitted things up for the class. So I improvised and made each sunburst different. Two have blue backgrounds and the other two have green backgrounds.

As of this extremely lazy moment, all four are appliqued onto their background squares and I've cleaned up all the threads. However I don't have a picture because they're downstairs and it's actually after 1:00 in the morning here. I figured I'd type up the blog now so I can get right to sewing in the morning.

I'm trying to get several smaller projects finished to the point of hand binding, slip stitching, etc before Tuesday afternoon. I'm sending my sewing machine off for cleaning and the pickup is first thing Wednesday morning. I'm hoping I'll have plenty of hand finishing to keep me busy, but if I get desperate I can always piece something on my old machine. It still works just fine, it just lacks all the bells and whistles the new one has. And the rule of thumb with piecing is to start and finish a project on the same machine because they're all a bit different.

I'm actually finished with my friend's quilt, but want to wait until I've delivered it before I post pictures anywhere. So I'll be sharing that next weekend. Until then, have some cuteness to tide you over.

See you next weekend!

Writing

I swear I've been doing some creative things for the past couple of weeks. But I've been writing, which means I don't have anything public or share-able at the moment.

Some other highlights from the week include: spending a day shopping for quilt patterns with a friend, getting a really bad sunburn on just part of my collarbone... thanks, seatbelt, for making that uneven, eating some yummy danishes, finding Artie in an odd place, and watching a darling family of 6 rescue cats get adopted after 2+ months of watching the 5 kittens grow up.

Here's Artie in the "odd place."

I posted that photo on Instagram and the best, also only, comment was, "Dark brooding kitteh kat laying by rainbows." This is particularly funny because the commenter in question is a friend who likely (and purposefully) choose his words to match the cadence and meter of, "pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows." If you choose to poke that link, be warned that there be earworms!

Now I need to go reapply some aloe to the rather tiny blisters all over my collarbone and then make caramel sauce and a cheesecake. See you next week!

Artan Says...

Mom's not feeling to well, so I'm keeping her from doing any work. I decided she was working to hard the other day and took the liberty of laying on her project and not letting her have it back. I'll maybe met her do her own typing next time.

Life Happens

So sometimes being creative get put on the back burner. Last week was one of those weeks. Lots of errands and shopping for home improvement projects.

I did alter a pattern for some new pajama pants, but that's not exceedingly interesting. I'm hoping to sew with said pattern this afternoon, if the real world allows me to.

So until next time, here's a picture of Artie trying to convince me to put down my book and throw his paper ball for him.

Late But Here!

Fuzzy Husband and I just got home from a quick trip south. We went to St. Louis to meet up with many other Twitch live streamers and community members and had a wonderful time!

So backing up a bit, last Monday I was pondering working on a new dress for myself. However I decided that it was time to finally look into upgrading my sewing machine. I've used the same one for 27 years and quite frankly, it makes sewing more work than play.

I went and looked at some options, got information, and came home to negotiate with Himself. Tuesday I went back and came home with this:

I have to say that I'm in love with this machine. I can do so much more with attention to detail without spending extra time on a project.

It quilts like a dream. I quilted together some random fat quarters to test it out. I can also do free motion quilting, but I need lots of practice!

So I finally started my new dress on Wednesday night. I picked this Burda pattern.

It did need about 4 hours of alteration.

Artie just had to help, of course.

But the final result is perfect! Himself was suggesting I make pouty faces and other foolishness whilst taking photos. Silly man.

I got it finished at 3 am Saturday morning, so I was able to wear it to the Twitch meet up. Good to know I still have the skills, even though I had ignored them for a while!

That's all for this week. I will be doing some heavy cleaning this week. Making up for time lost while I was sick. I'm hoping to play a little bit this week though. See you next Sunday!

Some Little Things

Wandering around JoAnn Fabrics last week resulted in a pattern and fabric catching my eye.

Artie "helped" of course.

I still need to clean up some threads and topstitch around the zipper.

I followed the pattern exactly and didn't like a couple of things. I'm going to make another one with some changes and see how it works out.

Saturday was our mini club's workshop day. Instead of doing the N.A.M.E. project like we usually do, we all worked on things for our hat shop.

The straw hats were actually make by Kat the Hat Lady years ago. I bought a handful of them undecorated. The purple hat is one I started as an example when I taught everyone that style of hat. I spent a good portion of my time teaching everyone (one on one) how to make silk ribbon roses. 

That's all for now. Time to find a bite to eat and ponder what to do for the rest of the day.

New Digs and Old Stash

The desk area in my studio is finally together and usable! Artie somewhat approves... maybe.

Our local club finally had our N.A.M.E. Day from last year. The cutter we ordered kits from had several issues, thus preventing us from playing last October. Finishing this piece will be one of the first projects in my renovated space.

I wasn't certain what I would put in this vignette until I spied the box labeled "Victorian Ladies' Shop." Most of the content have been in my stash for 10-15 years. It's about time they were put on display.

I'm off and running now! See you next week!

Baby Steps

Our new nephew was born quite healthy, if a tad disgruntled at being evicted from his warm apartment, on Monday afternoon. For anonymity purposes, I'm calling him "Mr. J" in the blog. Yes, that's a comic book reference. His parents would be proud. ;-) Speaking of his parents, they are quite besotted with their bundle and the three of them are a gorgeous family.

I'd been working on some things for wee Mr. J, but only a few were done in time for his early arrival. A set of three little washcloths. I found the pattern on Ravelry.com. I'll note that I skipped the edge stitching.

Still need to play catch up with his crocheted booties. I did have several pair of fleece booties for him though. They've been hanging out in the gift stash for ages.

After I drove home on Wednesday, I had a paint night event to attend. I'd signed up weeks ago when we thought FH would be out of town on business. Lucky break he wasn't or else I'd have needed a friend to look after the cats and bunny whilst I was gone. Instead of the adorable cartoonish kitten in the original sample, I decided to go for a more realistic cat. Of course it's Artan. I picked this event because the original kitten was black. Not bad for someone who's only ever sketched cats before.

Thursday it was back to the grind of laundry and housework. Currently the workroom/studio has spilled out into the house even more, so working on it counts as housework. I rediscovered a box full of tiny magazines that were cut from an issue of some miniature magazine back in the late 1990's. They were cut and folded, but somehow never got any further than that. During a break to rest my increasingly irritable knee, I glued them closed and tossed them into the 'Books and Magazines" container.

My new desk for the studio has yet to be delivered. FH and his boss were going to haul it over on Monday, but the boss had a family issue come up. Hopefully we can claim it soon... it's a cast off from FH's work and perfect for what I need. 

On Friday I finished the quilting on one of the chevron quilts, but I neglected to get a picture. I post about it and progress on the other chevron quilt next week.

See you all then!

Short Update

Things are still moving slowly here. Getting used to new medications is never easy and right now it's miserable. I've done some quilting, but haven't taken pictures of the rows themselves. I did catch my helpers the other day though.

I'm taking my friend, Michelle's, advice right now and just being kind to myself. If something sounds fun, I go and do it. If something doesn't seem like a good time and there's no necessary reason for it, I skip it.

I've helped with some Christmas tress this week and have all the furniture ready to paint for the charity dollhouse. After fighting my thread snapping no less than a dozen times in rapid succession (in the same 3" section of quilting no less!), I've given myself a break from that insanity until tomorrow.

Until next weekend!