More Of The R-Word

And I don’t care that it’s raining anymore! So there. My cold room in the basement has an inch of water in it so the moisture has finally soaked into my house. Hope it drowns some of the scary spiders that have been living in there for the past year or so. I’m too scared to go in to vacuum and I’m NOT normally scared of spiders. They are oversized, over-achieving, intelligent and probably irradiated/mutated/evil spiders. No relation to my much-missed Queenie or the ever-growing Queenie Jr. and her “sister” (in the bathroom) Princess. Those are my friends.

I had to go out to get my latest book that was attempted to be delivered while I was out yesterday at my weavers’ guild meeting. All I got instead was a notice. I hate when I have to go fetch a postal delivery. They always leave it at a pharmacy about a kilometer away and of course it was raining. (How novel.) Not to mention the fact that I had to wait until this afternoon before it would be available. 24 hours, people. Is that fair? Couldn’t the postie just pop it under my mat by the front door like they often do? Nobody is going to steal a book on quilting. Unless they’re a quilter. And no I’m not one. Not really.

So why am I buying a quilting book, you ask? Well, this particular book is called “Free Expressions” and it’s by Robbie Joy Eklow (aka The Goddess of the Last Minute from Quilting Arts magazine). I want desperately to learn how to do free motion embroidery and Robbie, bless her heart, does it the way I like and explains it very clearly and with feeling. This is actually a really nicely produced book, especially if you like bright colours and bold figures, which are her style. Even if you don’t there is good information on every page. I will learn. And then I will use it to make Art Quilts and Art Couture. Yeah, that’s the plan. We'll see.

Meanwhile,

I forgot to show you what my newly dyed curtains look like. Forgive the fact that I had to use a flash. It’s so dark I have to turn on the light at midday to prevent bumping into the furniture. And the curtains, though bright and sunny in colour, actually cut back on what outside light there is. Also forgive the fat cat butt in the middle of the photo. Ms Polly was having a look out the window at the bird feeder. It’s wishful thinking on her part. She can barely get up on the table far less hope to actually catch a bird. So the curtains don’t match the turmeric-coloured walls, there’s lots of that orange in the persimmon paintings on the wall to the left just out of the shot. I would have preferred the colour to be a bit darker but I wasn’t sure how well the fabric would dye. I wove it with cottolin (cotton/linen yarn) in the warp and cotton/rayon slub yarn in the weft. The cottolin was already dyed in pastel stripes but it was very faded in the areas in front of the window and less so on the hems. Also I never weighed the cloth or measured the dye properly but just made up stock by the teaspoon method (about 1 tsp dye powder to 1 cup water) and poured it on. If you’re gonna be haphazard then you gets haphazard results! T-Man likes it ok and it’s all orange to me. Good enough until that stupid drafty louvered window gets replaced with something bigger and better. Then I’ll have to make new curtains anyhow. Can’t hardly wait!

So I haven’t done a quiz for awhile on this here blog. So I tried this one:

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

Are You Gooder at Grammar?
Make a Quiz

Apparently, although I’m sure you’ll find mistakes in my writing on a regular basis, I know something about grammar! And I care about it too. I like to think when I break the rules, I do it because I want to. Heh.