I spent a day at work reading.

Normally, there would've been a blog post yesterday.  I usually will take a break throughout the morning if I find I'm losing focus and stop thinking about work.  At that point, I'll create a blog post with pictures I've uploaded from home, or even text that I've sent myself for future blog entries.

Yesterday, I got to work and my computer was doing funny things.  Really funny and it wouldn't connect to any server.  So I logged off and tried to log on again.  "Your account has been deactivated."  Very funny.  Let's try that again.  "Your accont has been deactivated."

Ummmmm.  I peek at my boss's office and try again.  Third time's the charm right?  (I know.  And I'm IN I.T.!)

Next step?  Call the help desk with a healthy dose of "WTF?"

"One moment....  Yes, your name is on the list of people who've been hit by a virus.  We've shut down your account and will be scanning your profile.  Please disconnect your computer from the network and someone will by by to scan your desktop to make sure that it has no virus." 

Ahhhh ok.  Perfect.  I hang up, disconnect my computer and wait.  I drink some coffee and wait.

And wait.

I pick up my book that I use for bus reading and I read. 

Two hours later, I've told my coworkers, finished my coffee and I'm really a lot like a hummingbird in my cubicle.  Focusing on one thing for a few seconds before popping my head up to see if anyone helpdesk-like is making their way to my desk. 

Nothing.

I finish my book.  Talk to my coworkers.  Call the helpdesk for an ETA.  No ETA.  Large volume of people affected, no idea when they'll get to me. 

Project manager suggests that working downtown is great with all the shopping nearby.  I go shopping and return to my desk 33 minutes later with a stack of books from the used book store believing that SOMEONE would've been to my desk by now.

Nope.

I read some more, eat lunch, check with the chair of my afternoon meeting to make sure I have the time and location right.  Read some more.

Attend my meeting.  Project manager tells me I might as well go home so at 3:05pm I hit the road (ok, the bus route) and I'm on my way home.  Today is my day off.

Do you think by Monday I'll have my account back?  How about Wednesday since I'm out of the office on Monday and Tuesday?

Books and randomness

I haven't sewn a single thing since Sunday.  Not a single stitch.  I'm a little sad about it because I participated in another blog challenge to complete one thing this week. ONE.  I challenged myself to applique the dandelions onto Dandelion Wishes.  It's funny, I was afraid of applique until I took a class in it.  Then I realized how easy it really is.  So it's not that I'm dreading the project.  I'm just procrastinating for no good reason.  I also may have suggested in addition to applique that I could actually get the third border sewn onto my scrappy nine-patch.  Uh huh.  I did.  It may be a good thing that I have Friday off.

In other news, I've been catching up on my Library reading.  I learned of a local author's book at the murder mystery night I attended so I had to get my hands on it.  Luckily, the library had a copy and I've been reading Touch by Gayleen Froese all week on the bus and at lunch.  I'm really enjoying it and I'm glad I picked it up.

I've also been reading Harlan Coben's Deal Breaker in the evenings.  Another fantastic book that I struggle to put down.  Last night, I was falling asleep while reading so I finally gave up on those last 25 pages.  It's always better to REMEMBER a book.  I wasn't falling asleep because the book is boring, not at all.  It's so good, I couldn't put it down, even when my body was telling me I needed to sleep.

I've also returned to healthier eating.  This means actually eating IN instead of out.  No more ordering pizza because we're both tired and lazy.  No more picking up fast food because we can't really decide what we want to eat.  Last night I made pork chops, mac and cheese and broccoli for dinner and it tasted way better than anything I've eaten in the last month (well, except the Thanksgiving turkey).  My lunches have been healthy(er) frozen meals.  Some don't taste all that bad, but for what it's worth, Michealena's taste like cardboard.  Ick.

I'm cursed with a complete dislike of sandwiches.  Especially sandwiches that are made and then sit around getting soggy for several hours before they're eaten.  Ew ew ew.  There's also something fundamentally wrong with cold bread.  Even room temperature bread is iffy.  So you see my problem with lunch, right?  I have weird food issues - that there is my problem.  Soup and a grilled cheese?  Sure, but that's a little hard to make at the office and it's surprising how hard it is to find a good grilled cheese sandwich.  Most places pile on too much cheese or use weird bread or add other things to it that just don't belong. 

So.  Yeah.  Maybe I should go with a Wordless Wednesday.  That there was some meaningless, random babble.  And you didn't see what I deleted...

I blame the bagpiper that I can hear playing somewhere in the distance.  Please, someone, explain to me a bagpiper in a city's downtown at 8:30am? 

(The below picture is not from my city, nor was it taken at 8:30am, but isn't it pretty?)

I took this while sitting in the middle of rush our traffic in Toronto.  I had plenty of time for random shots of random and not so random buildings as we waited and waited and waited to move single car lengths at a time.  I will never, ever complain about rush hour here again.

The bag once more

I just wanted to share this bag again for Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesday.  It's a terribly simple pattern - I think it took me only a couple of hours to make.  It's the Pick a pocket bag from Allpeoplequilt.com.  I even bought extra of the two black and white fabrics because I loved them so much.

The bag was super easy to cut out, layer and sew together, even though I'm really not used to sewing that many layers at one time.  I think if I were to make it again, I'd make some changes to it - first off, making it larger - but it's  such a sweet little bag that I can't help loving it.  And the batting it uses makes it really work well as a slightly insulated lunch bag.

Fantastic giveaway

Canton Village Quilt Works is sponsoring a giveaway on Jaybird Quilts.  There is some great fabric there and 3 different giveaways to win.  I personally love the batiks.

Operation: Finish Stuff is over

And I did finish something.

That quilt top is sewn together and it`s not as horrific as I thought it might be.

Not quite done:

 Dandelion wishes still needs the flowers appliqued, I did get the rows sewn together last night though.

Bonus project that I found in the bottom of my quilt bin just needs the binding hand stitched down on the back

Got the blanket stitch done around everything but the cat - I need brown thread, then binding and it`ll be done!

Scrappy nine patch, just needs one more border.

3 tops almost done!

AND one more bonus project thanks to a trip to the fabric store.  I have a new purse!

SO simple.  It`s from allpeoplequilt.com - free pattern.

Day 2 of Operation Finish Stuff

And I slept in.  I'm just getting up and it's 11:30.  On what planet does sleeping until noon = getting stuff done?  Ditto going to the Women's Show yesterday.  I had a fantastic time yesterday though and bought a mani/pedi for $49. Yay for manicures and pedicures.

Anyway, back to Operation: Finish Stuff (so I can buy more fabric).  I've learned a couple of lessons on this.

• Make sure you know where everything is BEFORE the night you plan to start.  I've wasted a lot of time trying to find stuff and in the interest of just getting going, I stopped looing for my rotary cutter completely.  Luckily, I haven't needed it, yet.
• Be strong.  Murphy's law, someone is ALWAYS going to call and ask if you want to do something.  Every.  Single.  Time.  
• No, you can't go for breakfast with friends and then the women's show and still get home before noon.  I don't care if it starts at nine.  It isn't happening.
• I can't be hypnotized on a stage while sitting beside a hot fireman.
• I'm not a morning person when given a choice so I can't expect to be up and at 'em bright and early to work on unfinished stuff.
• Borders take a long time to do right on a queen sized quilt.

The good news is that so far I have sewn Dandelion Wishes up.  I've sewn up the psychedelic quilt without sashing and it doesn't look that bad.  I have two borders done on my scrappy nine-patch and it looks great.

Up for today:

• Get that third border on the scrappy nine patch.
• go buy a new rotary cutter.  This means that when I find my other one, I'll have two here for when Mom comes to quilt and a cutter to take to retreats.
• Buy fabric for strawberry pillows - even better if I can find Strawberry Shortcake fabric for my niece.
• Buy backing fabric and batting for three quilts
• Put together my cat appliques and either find their instructions or fake it and finish them (I forgot they were at the bottom of my quilting bin)
• Finish cutting the fabric from grandma
• Take pictures of everything I accomplished

Aaaaand finally (or likely first)

• GET OUT OF MY PAJAMAS

This has been a fun weekend and I even found an idea for a new quilt!  I'll probably also buy the fabric for it at the same time as I buy my other fabric.

And now because I like picture posts, the furry Mooses (aka, our pets)

Why, yes, she is eating that grass.  And yes, it IS fake grass that we bought thinking that would stop the cats from trying to eat it...

I think I'm going to have a UFO weekend.

No, I'm not going to Roswell.  I'm not even going to Vulcan, Alberta  (I wish I were kidding).  I'm going to my sewing machine to work on some quilt projects that have been laying around far too long.  First up is the first quilt I ever started.

I made this using a lot of scraps from my mom's stash.  What can I say, I was bored one weekend so I started.  It's been hanging around for about five years.  Yes.  The borders have been cut out the entire time.  I waffle on how I feel about this one, but as of last night, I liked it again.  I particularly like these pictures

I'm kinda excited that this weekend will see the binding (isn't it pretty) finally added - red then cream then navy.  Then comes the decision I've never actually made before - how to quilt it.  Mom knows a couple women who do long arm quilting, I suspect I'll use her recommendation and then hopefully they'll have a suggestion for this busy quilt.



Next up on my list of things to finish is a quilt that defines poor fabric choices.  Don't get me wrong, the fabric is great and I love each individual fat quarter.  However, once put together it's a little hard on the eyes.

Why yes, that quilt does have pink and orange and lime green in it.  And purple too!

No.  I don't know quite what I was thinking.

Finally, we have my favorite quilt.  (Yes.  I just changed the subject)  It could be because it doesn't blind me when I look at it.

This one has all the rows ready to be sewn together then appliqued and finally I need to choose a binding for it.

The best part about finishing these three quilt tops?  I can buy more fabric.  First up will be backing and batting for all of them.  And binding because I'm a little dense and didn't buy binding for any of them.

Also on the list if I get bored of just sewing, I have fabric to cut up.  This quilt is kinda special though and it won't get put together this weekend.  First, the fabric, then the story.

That there is some unattractive fabric (particularly that big piece in the second picture).  We don't even know what it's supposed to be.  There are several theories:  roses and butterflies, pineapples or perhaps some kind of alien nut.  Regardless, it's going to be used in a quilt.

This is all fabric my Mom inherited when her mother-in-law (my grandma) passed away several years ago.  In all of the rooting through fabric over the weekend, she decided we needed to do something with some of the fabric from Grandma.  I tried to match them up and this is probably less than half of the fabric available to choose from.  I finally came up with this grouping of fabrics that will be used to make a flying geese quilt.  The ugly fabric on the end?  It's going to be cut into 1.5 inch strips and used as a narrow sashing and border.  The dark paisley behind it will be the outer border.  Oddly enough, for the pattern I choose, these fabrics were the exact measurement.

Mom wants to work on it together so I'll cut all the fabric into strips and over time when we get together, we'll start putting this together bit by bit.  Then it's going on my sofa with a flannel backing.