Sunday's Showing and would-be Table Runners

AH! Monday, blessed Monday. And I need the rest. Yesterday was a total wipe-out day.

First, as always I did a total workout at the gym to make up a missed Saturday class and just because it's Sunday and DH is watching all the news shows on TV I have to get out of here.  Back home, ready for a shower and something to eat - never happened. 

Minutes after I got to the kitchen to start lunch the phone rang. The house showing service wanted a client showing at 2:30. Thank Gawd it was just 12:30 we had two hours to prep the house. Anyone who has ever sold a house knows where this is going. We jumped into warp speed, making beds, mopping floors, hiding bedding (don't ask) and heading out. Out meaning back to the gym; now I really needed a shower. By 3:00 I had made it to Southern Seasons and had just ordered lunch. Remind me later to tell you about their Salmon BLT.

What would I have been doing?  The last couple of weeks, as time permits, I have been heading to the men's shirt department of the Goodwill to find either small plaids and checks OR blue & white shirts. After working on the diamond-string piecing of the planned scrappy quilt (see last Tuesday's entry),  I had decided to begin another table runner .

WHY I am making runners this size is the question. A question for which I do not have a good answer. Yes, they do look good on the DR table don't they? 

See the tropical parrot and jungle leaf print made several years back to work with the green Depression-era glass wares I once collected. Those dishes have since gone to my sister and now I use the runner for house showings until the sale and then she will get the runner as well.

But that table is history once we sell this house, it is too big for the planning dining area in the new villa. I will miss the bright greens and stark black+white banding but since the green dishes are gone, why keep it? 

The Depression collection that I did keep are the Cobalt blue glasses and dishes and that's where the blue+white scheme began. Have blue and white runners for other relatives, why not one for me? With my new collection of blue-white shirts it was easy to jump into a blue-white combination for the next runner. Trouble is do I want just blue and white, or blue-white with a touch of pure green? Or blue-white with a touch of pure green and yellow? Or blue-white with some jade green, yellow and hot lime to add some jazz?  You see how this could evolve into yet another scrappy quilt. But 'scrappy' in the best possible way.

Whose table adornment this will become is as yet undetermined but I do hope to get some good photos before handing if off. Meantime the scrappy runner got a lot of attention this week.  I show you here the completed piecing and a candidate for the border/backing. This may or may not work, found this scrap of a dark print in blues/teal/rusts and thought I had enough for backing & border but then decided to use the leftover diamond-string units (four up of a 6x9, stitched over a starched dryer sheet), for a couple of travel pillows (just below).

Actually used 24 blocks (= six diamonds) of the made 32 blocks for the runner, leaving the "less" than perfect blocks (2 units of 4-up) to become throw pillows. And the dark-print fabric will become pillow-backing instead of runner-backing. That leaves me hunting for another backing for the runner.

And to the right you will find a picture of the "Sewing Matching" pillow that Kait Neely made for me in the TMQG's "Travel Pillow Swap" in June. Remind me to think twice about doing this again. I was happy to make a pillow for giveaway but when I got the swap pillow home I began to wonder: what will I do with it?

 

Kait has spent SO much time and detail making the pillow and I was tossing it on the guest room bed which will soon be history also as there is no guest room in the new villa. What to do?  I packed it back in a bag and took it to the July meeting and gave it back to Kait. But before that I did take pictures so I can remember what my former swap gift looked like. Still with me?

 

That still does not solve the problem of what size to make the blue-white-with color accents" runner-in-progress, do I want it for the small round table, or just long enough to take pictures and then pass it on to someone else? What do I know? Later.

 

Today is time for Monday afternoon ballroom at the Seymour Center and this month's dance is SALSA. To that end look what I found:  National Dance Day is July 30 (that's next Saturday!).

http://dance.blogs.fox.com/2011/07/07/three-routines-for-national-dance-day-2011/ 

 

And to celebrate Dance Day, Mary Murphy of Fox Network's "So You Think You Can Dance" has choreographed a "National Salsa." Who knew there was a National Dance Day? How come no one told me this before? Thanks to Susan Wartell of my Thursday dance class for the heads up.  

Murphy's dance is the 'beginner' version of three dances you will find on the site but forget the Intermediate and Advanced: the middle one is for aspiring pole dancers and the advanced dance looks more like hip-hop than Salsa. Where is Bobby Darren when you really need him? So DH and I have Salsa to practice before this afternoon's session.

 

And I need some hot tea.  later, bb

Can I boast? Please? I am so proud of the result with "Ragtime Dreams."

Jan Struble did the top quilting and it is magnificent. Binding was tedious but went faster than expected; plus there was binding leftover. This is a source of anxiety when quilting as you expect at some point to run out of fabric.






Speaking of running out of fabric, did a trip to Thimble Pleasures, Carrboro, this morning to get one-and-half yards of a binding fabric for number two quilt. Still have to bind, label and attach hanging sleeves to the second. Both are entered in the October 17-19 show.

Other fabrics were purchased for the Gayle Bong workshop coming in September 13-15. I have restrained myself to only one of the three workshops offered. "Thirtysomething Crash Course" is about working with thirty-degree angles and cuts is Saturday, September 13. I need that course.

My current frustration (there's always something), is working with a sixty-degree angles for a table runner. This is part two of a two-part quilted ensemble; teapot, tea cozy and runner for an engaged niece. Cozy is done and I am using scraps and more to make an angled-table runner. My sister had the bright idea to make one side like the cozy and the reverse in holiday colors for entertaining. I did not quite tell her I hate the idea of cutesy holiday prints BUT I did decide that red-white-green and some bold brights would work and look close enough for entertaining.

My first mistake was to machine-embroider their names on leftover scraps. Uneven and odd shaped I embroidered "Her Name," and "His Name," getting hers on the grain and his slightly off. I trimmed to straighten, them pressed and trimmed some more. The result is 'her' block is about forty percent bigger than 'his' block and now I have un-equal blocks to fit into a runner shape with an angled, pointy ends. Why did I do this?

Yesterday I finally gave up and made nine-patches, paired with a red polka dot (tiny), to make larger four-patches and now it really does look like Christmas. Too late to start over, I'll muddle through somehow. ALL of this is paired to fit a Red Fiesta Ware teapot (my sister's contribution), giving me fits in fitting fabric scraps together. I will post pictures if and when something begins to look 'done.'

Meantime I have visited Sherwin-Williams, several times. Remember the damage to the garage doors? The carpentry is done and now painting to match the garage is needed. I found a spec sheet from '05 with paint number/names and DH bought a quart of what we thought was the door color. Not so.

Being the 'colorist' in the family I headed back to S-W to collect samples of neutrals (weathered greys) to match the door. Taking the door off and carrying it to S-W would have been quicker.
Finally, this morning I pulled a swatch that matches the door only to learn that the color was not, and never had been, on the spec sheet in the first place (???). Someday I have to get organized! Now I have a folder with paint chips, notations, dates and receipts of all paint purchased for future reference. I thought I did this once before.

My tutorials with Windows MovieMaker and PowerPoint continue. My ambitious plans to offer a lecture series on "Dance in American Films" may or may not happen. I have until DH begins band class in September to prove that I can do it, or not. At that time I have to announce the January class or decide to make it next year instead. DH is having the time of his life searching and solving the technical problems of what will copy and what will not. Me? I'm just trying to keep up!

And the friendly folks at Harris Teeter are not helping. I know I am sliding into old age but I thought I was doing it more slowly. Friday after walking 30 minutes and doing a 30 minute weight workout (with a lot of leg lifts), I showered and dressed, heading to H-T to food shop. I felt great and thought I looked like a pretty fit woman. Trying to develop the habit of taking my own shopping bags to the markets (instead of using plastic), I was all ready to carry out the groceries, when a staffer (just a few years my junior), said to me "shall I carry that out for you?" What?

How old and pathetic do I look? I just did chin-ups in the gym, do I look like I can't make it to the car? I am not sure if I had been insulted or some one was just trying to be helpful. How do you tell?

DH is due home from the dentist soon. Got to make soup.
b