Summer Goes Too Quickly

Summer is winding down, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. I think there are too many things that I wanted to do, but they never really happened. I didn't get to enjoy my back porch nearly as much as I wanted to, so trees are starting to turn shades of bright red, as the flowers continue to bloom and disappear.

August means the hibiscus are slowly fading away....

And that soon the dahlias will have to be dug up and stored for winter....

But then I will have more time to make whole wheat blueberry pancakes....

And I'll have more time for sewing, which is always a plus for me. I've decided my winter project is to learn how to knit. Now crochet, crochet I can do. Granted, there is a lot of cursing and frustration associated with crocheting, but for some reason I still want to pick up a ball of yarn and just make it work.

Do you knit? Is it easier or harder than crochet?

Finally Finished

This is the face of someone who has been banned from my work area:

I think I'll call it his "I like this box better anyway" face. Being a typical cat, Duncan has a tendency to sit on any piece of paper, scrap of fabric, or article of clothing you may be trying to read/sew and/or wear. It's a never-ending battle that I lose on a daily basis.

Somehow though, I can sometimes scoot him away long enough to take a picture or two.

Yeah, or one. Make that one picture without his fuzzy butt. Outside, however, things are out of his reach, and I can stand on my tip-toes while Husband takes a few pictures for me (I could only find one clip, so please pardon my hand, and the neighbor's fence isn't exactly my favorite place to take pictures, but I'm trying to make do).

TAH-DAH!

It is finally, finally, FINALLY done! How many needles did I break on this one? Probably about four, and I don't even want to recall the amount of swearing that came from my mouth, along with cave woman-ish grunts, squeals, and "ah crap" comments. I decided to stipple quilt the entire thing, and I'm not quite sure why I ever thought it was a good idea. Now don't get me wrong, I love the way it looks and feels, but geeeeezzz. That was a pain, and I don't know how much recovery time I'll need before I considering doing another large quilt. I think it might be like recovering from a hangover. The next day you say "I'm never going to do that again", but give it a few months and you'll say "hey, let's go out again and drink amaretto sours/buy more fabric".

I did hide a little something special in the border.... can you find it?

All-in-all, I'm in love with it. It has the perfect amount of wavy, crinkly goodness I was looking for. I wish I could have made it bigger, as it just fits over the edges of our queen-sized bed, but I didn't have enough fabric.

I had a crazy dream during one of first weeks we slept under it. I had eaten a little bit of a serrano pepper, and apparently they make me hallucinate. No, I'm not joking, and it was not a fun night for me. I mention it because I woke up to find myself frantically checking over every inch of this quilt, because my delusional dreamland, it was torn to shreds. Of course that night I also thought the lights in the house wouldn't turn off, and that the dog needed to go pee at 1:30 AM (he was really confused), and that Husband had driven my car off a pier.

I think I'll stick to peanut butter and smaller projects for a while.