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Got some sheer fabric yesterday and tried again.

1) I really like the clouds.  The free motion stitching was WAY easier than I’d been imagining, and so was painting the fabric.  I need a darker shade of the blue and maybe a different color – more sky blue, less cobalt.  But regardless – I’m happy with my first try!

2) Obviously I need to use a darker thread when stitching in the blue and purple hills.  Oops.

3) The whole thing is crooked, which I don’t mind since this was purely for practice, but next time!

I think this will be a helpful technique in doing the Yonder quilt, though I might end up putting that one off for a bit until I can learn more.  I found this book called Lovely Landscape Quilts that’s about $20 on Amazon and at Parnassus (which…I need to not be buying books from Amazon…) so I might end up getting that book.  I’m sure it’d be helpful.

I’m not totally blowing off the leather stuff….one of the sales reps at work asked me to make him a saddle bag-style laptop case and I quoted him $175, so I’m going to work on that over the weekend.  But I’m way more excited about the quilt.  And also wish I could stay home all day and just make things.  Bah.

I can’t remember if I mentioned – but the FIRST quilt I’m doing is going to be for Stephen’s bed.  I’m not a huge fan of his current bedspread (which obviously is nothing personal)…it’s just very generic, and, uh, yeah.

Have been itching to start a new quilt lately.  The last one I made was the baby-sized quilt for A/M/M as a Christmas present, and that’s been a while ago now.

I would love to learn how to make landscape quilts — they are just some of the most gorgeous pieces of art I’ve ever seen.

Etc.  Aren’t these beautiful??  I pinned some even more stunning examples on my Sewing Ideas Pinterest board, but these are the two that I’d most like to try to copy.

So, I found a cheap copy of Yonder on Amazon and bought it.  This book has so many gorgeous landscape illustrations, and right now I think that it would just be wonderful if I could copy one as a quilt.  While the book is shipping, though, I need to practice some techniques.  A couple of nights ago, I tried doing some curved sewing and it wasn’t as easy as I was hoping, so I need more practice.

I also found this website which offered a lovely technique…but as you can see from the pictures below (taken over my lunch break so it’s not like I tried all THAT hard), I need to work on it.

(Top is the goal – click on image for the link)

And these are my pictures.  I obviously need some sheer fabric for this – lace and almost-sheer white fabric are not cutting it.

On Saturday, we grilled two kinds of chicken.  First was with a dry rub (paprika, cayenne, garlic, onion powder, salt, white pepper, black pepper, um, I feel like I’m forgetting something…) which was absolutely delicious.  Second was a grapefruit coriander glaze – made with grapefruit zest and juice, garlic, salt and pepper, honey, and tons of coriander.  (Which is like my favorite spice, in case you wondered.)   That one was also good, and awfully different from the dry rub chicken which was hot and spicy instead of sweet and zesty.

Anyway, so there was a whole breast of each left so we de-boned it, and I just had a sandwich with the leftover grapefruit coriander chicken.  The sandwich was chicken, bleu cheese, avocado, and mayo – on grilled sourdough.  OMG IT WAS THE BEST SANDWICH I’VE HAD ALL MONTH.  Even better than those fresh mozz sandwiches yesterday.  I might be biased because I was much hungrier eating that chicken sandwich than the fresh mozz sandwiches, but still.

Oh and also, I brined the chicken for about 3-4 hours before we cooked them, and as far as I can tell it was helpful!  We didn’t have a control so weren’t able to make scientific comparisons, but.

I’m having a hard time believing that it’s already Monday.  This weekend absolutely flew by and was by no means long enough.  Stephen wrote a composition for voice and strings/woodwinds/french horn, and the performance was yesterday – and practice on Saturday.  The concert was great and Stephen’s piece was the best.  His mom and sister drove up for it, and we all went to a Nashville Symphony performance in a park last night.  It was fun, but tiring.  I did not want to get out of bed this morning – which is really nothing new, but.

It’s Monday, and finally feeling like summer outside.  Summer is the most depressing season of the year to me – because I just struggle in hot weather to feel good.  Also, the sky tends to be pretty hazy for most of the summer; the crystal clear blue skies of spring, fall, and winter all seem to be sort of obscured during summer by a film.  Maybe that’s just my imagination…I don’t know.

But I’m bored and having to spend every free cent this month on renewing my car tags and paying the IRS, so I’m trying to think of some new things I can tackle without spending money.  Sorry to say that I need a break from making leather stuff.  I’m just tired of it.  I want to do it because I enjoy it, not because I feel like I have to do it.

So that said, one thing I need to do when I get home is clean the house.  Been gone all weekend and it needs some TLC.  I also need to start exercising, because if it does nothing else it at least makes me feel better and is free.

I’ve also been thinking about making a new quilt.  I still haven’t made that chess quilt…and it’ll happen at some point, but I want to make something different first.  I bought a couple yards of map fabric a few months ago and have been saving it for something good…maybe I’ll quilt with that.  I’m thinking that I should do something other than a typically-patterned quilt… but so far haven’t felt terribly inspired one way or the other.

Anyway, quilting.  That’s an option.  Also I’ve felt lately that I need to be doing more drawing and/or painting.  I sketch every now and then, but not regularly and not seriously.  I would be better at drawing and painting if I would actually practice drawing and painting.  Why is it that I enjoy doing both of those things, but I so infrequently do them???  I don’t know.  Probably has something to do with all the myriad of other things I let distract me.

I miss college sometimes because structure – while annoying and confining – can be so good for me.  Some days I can be good at going home and knocking stuff out after work…but some days are pretty much the complete opposite.  I guess it’s ok to have both types of days, but the days that I can check items off of my mental to-do list are days that make me feel better about myself.

THAT SAID, after work today I’m cleaning the house, doing some yoga, and either starting a new quilt or working on a new drawing.  There you have it.

New purse!  Keeping this one, but I like it so much that I wanted to post a couple of detail photos anyway.

I do not know how people with children ever get anything done.  I have absolutely no idea how my parents did it.  I don’t ever seem to have enough time to do everything that I want to do at home – and imagine throwing a kid or two into the mix!!  Does it just force you to view everything with a different mindset?  As in, I have to get this done so I’m not even going to allow myself to think about what might happen if I don’t do it.  Because I totally procrastinate all the time.  Like last night, instead of mowing the lawn or doing laundry, I made a bunch of cupcakes.  Granted, I had a good reason to make them — I need to figure out what recipe I’m going to use for the cakes for Carla’s wedding (verdict: maybe this cake recipe, but definitely not the icing recipe).  But I sorely need to do laundry, and straighten my bedroom, and clean the bathroom, and mow the lawn.  You know — all this stuff that I regularly talk about doing but seldom do.

I say all this, because after work tonight I need to go pick up some boxes of books at Ryan’s, and borrow the lawn mower so I can mow the lawn.  And then I need to do laundry and wash dishes from all the baking I did last night (plus I made bean enchiladas….which were delicious).

But do I want to do any of that?  Oh, no.  I have been feeling a new quilt coming on lately, and am toying with using the leftover green linen from my cloak, with the map fabric I bought at the Country Living fair – and maybe doing an Escher inspired design.  Not sure yet.

ALSO though, I want to spend the evening making a few very small leather items – like wallets, or small envelope clutches of some sort.  (And honestly I’m more likely to do these than to start on a quilt tonight….)

Then again, there’s also Oblivion, which, frankly, I am still rather enjoying.  I finished the main quest line, so I now have Champion of Cyrodiil added to my resume — along with Arch Mage, and whatever the Arena champion is called.  I also have been to the Shivering Isles one measly time, and need to go back there to explore some more.

Oh man.  See?  How do people with kids fit this kind of stuff into their schedules?!  I mean, they would either need to stay at home all the time and not have to work 8 hours/day, or have older children who they can trust to not ruin things while they’re crafting…….etc.  NOT TO MENTION laundry and housework!!!  I’m feeling tired just thinking about it.

Finished my cloak last night, guys.  And it’s sooo pretty.  The linen blend has an expensive feel about it even though it was one of the cheapest ones they had at Joann’s.  Would look better if I had bought material to do a lining too, but 1) too expensive, and 2) I want to wear it in May, so that would make it too hot, as well.

OH IT’S SO PRETTY OMG.  Even though I apparently forgot to suck in my stomach when I took the picture!!  I will get someone to take a picture in better lighting, and with the white dress I’m going to wear with it…but just am excited so wanted to put this picture up right now anyway.