My very own "A-ha" moment...

I'm not sure where this idea came from.

I was watching "Oprah" yesterday morning and it just popped into my head, in full color even. I didn't see anything on her set (consciously, anyway) to trigger it, though David Arquette did have a funky tattoo on his left forearm that may have played a part. I'm not giving either one of them credit for this, however.

Is it sad to admit I start my day with Oprah? Well, technically, I start it with NPR and then Oprah, but still.

At any rate, the idea was there so I ran with it, did a quick mock-up in PowerPoint (yes, I'm that much of a geek, I sketch most of my ideas on my computer) and started cutting.

We'll see if I like it as much in real life as I do on paper.

The joys of condo living...

So I'm camped out on the sofa last Sunday afternoon, all snuggly against winter's bite under a warm quilt that I should have made but bought before I knew how, catching up on my TiVo, the cat nestled next to my legs and both of us eagerly anticipating the Super Bowl (Archie loves to watch football) and those wonderfully entertaining commercials, when I hear it:

drip.

I sat up, my head cocked in the direction of my front doorway, which is directly underneath my upstairs neighbors' kitchens. Uh-oh.

drip...drip...drip

In the seconds it took to realize what was happening, it went from drip...drip...drip to dripdripdripdripdripdripdripDripDRipDRIpDRIPDRIPDRIPDRIP to actual RAIN in my living room.

My first thought was, "HOLY CRAP! The piano!"

My second thought was "HOLY CRAP! My sewing machine!"

I thought you'd all be proud of me for putting my sewing machine so high on the list, even though it's replaceable. My grandfather's 90-year old baby grand is not, so it gets top billing on the Worry List.

My third thought, which probably should have been my first, was to shut the water off as quickly as possible.

In a blur I managed to find shoes, throw the quilt over the piano (like that really would have helped), get a towel down on the floor beneath the leak, grab my keys and fly down the flight of stairs to the basement, close the water main and shut down the hot water heater, all the while on my cell phone in a rather animated call to my handy man.

Long story short, my neighbor two floors up left for the weekend and didn't deadbolt his balcony door, which we now know doesn't close all the way unless you give it a good bump. And February in Chicago being just a little windy, and having just experienced the third worst blizzard of all time just a few days before, those winds were a little more active than usual. Of course, the door blew open in his absence.

It's still a little fuzzy as to whether the heat was also turned off, or if the wind blew the furnace pilot out...but that's water under the floorboards at this point.

Two days of sub-freezing air + no heat = burst pipes + a pain in my you-know-what

Both the piano and sewing machine, I'm happy to report, are nice and dry. My walls and ceiling, not so much.

As the (very reluctant) President of my condo association, the past week has been spent juggling four different insurance companies, claims adjustors and an angry owner (the guy on the second floor bore the brunt of it) in addition to sorting through half-soaked possessions from my basement storage locker (also in the line of fire), and anticipating the joy of removing drywall and listening to heavy-duty dehumidifers run non-stop in my living room and bedroom (because leaking water runs wherever it damn well pleases, no matter that the bedroom is on the other side of the building) for 72 hours straight. When all I really wanted to do was watch the Super Bowl, undisturbed, from the comfort of my own couch.

After being barraged for a week, yesterday I refused to answer my phone or check e-mail in an effort to regain a sense of normalcy, no matter how false. I needed to sew, dammit! A little someone I know is due for a doll quilt, so I dug out some charm squares I've had forever and booked a little therapy session with Dr. Bernina.

Happy colors, and easy, mindless piecing. It wasn't much, but boy, it felt good! How is it that just sitting down to the machine and watching that fabric feed under the needle, even for just an hour, makes everything else fade away? For a little while, anyway. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get the phone -- it's my claims adjustor calling. Again.

Snowmageddon!

Yesterday afternoon at 2:30, this was the view out my office window. We'd had about an inch of snow the night before, and the Blizzard of 2011 was just commencing.

This morning, it's a little different:

It's hard to tell just how much snow we actually got -- this side of the building only had about six inches, but the drifts at my front door were about four feet (yes, FEET). Two hours of shoveling later, and there's a shovel-wide path to crawl through, and I'm done -- but the snow isn't! They're forecasting another 4-6" of lake effect snow today!

Phew!

This project was going to be quick and easy little boy quilt -- one of those just-get-it-done tops to crank out in a day, or a weekend. I mean, what's simpler than sewing a couple really cute charm packs together...right?

Turns out it's only quick and easy if the charm packs aren't homespuns cut every way but straight. Some of the squares were so distorted and cut so crooked I couldn't use them; there were others that weren't much better but I could square them up a little by adding a solid corner. It worked in some cases, but there are a lot of places where it looks like I had my eyes closed when I pieced it.

It was frustrating, because the last time I used homespuns, I painstakingly ironed and cut the plaids as straight as I possibly could. I was annoyed most of the time I was piecing this one that Moda, with all its cutting technology, couldn't even come close.

But rather than keep that bee in my bonnet, I'm choosing to revel in its "rustic" feel. Some things aren't worth getting worked up over, and I don't think Baby Jack is going to care very much when he arrives, either.

[Fabric:  Two "Sunshine" by April Cornell charm packs and various Kona solids]

Time flies...

Not sure how it all of a sudden got to be the middle of January, but here I am. Sorry to be gone so long -- again!

The year started off with quite a bit of freelance work, which is very welcome in these parts. It's keeping Archie in catnip, but it's also keeping me away from my sewing machine! I did manage to dig out some aging charm packs last week and start in on something new. It's simple, but going very slowly given how little time I've put toward it so far.

Archie's ready to get sewing!

My Christmas visit home was nice, relaxing, and I had some great visits with friends and family. The slipcover jammies were a big hit -- so big, in fact, my Monkey Girl decided she absolutely HAD to try them on right then and there, in the restaurant bathroom, which she did, and we all had to take turns going in to see her model them.

No, this was not taken in the restaurant bathroom.

She and American Girl Samantha have been wearing them every night since.

As "Sound of Music" moments go, I think this was one of my best!

Blog? What blog?

It's been a while, hasn't it? What started out as an intent to write when I had something finished to show off turned into a whirlwind of projects where lots got started and very little was getting done. That shouldn't be a surprise.

Anyway, over the past month I've been busy crafting, and working a little, and blogging has definitely taken a back seat. My apologies. I'm going to try to be more diligent in the New Year, but I also hate making resolutions, so we'll see how long that lasts.

But five days before Christmas, I am done with all but one project, which is an easy one so I've saved it for last.

Since Thanksgiving, I made my Christmas cards...

and stenciled some stationery...

made my sister an apron...

and decorated a whole lot of Christmas cookies.

But the biggest project this year was one I never intended to do.

You see, this Fall my Monkey Girl's mother decided to rehab the vacation house up north, which meant, basically, clearing it out and taking it down to the studs. The house has been in her family for thirty years, and I've been going up there for twenty-seven of them. There was a lot of history there, and memories, and lots of work to be done. I went up to help in September, right about the time she decided that the sofa, a wonderfully huge, comfortable sectional she'd had in her first apartment here in Chicago, needed to go. The slipcover wouldn't match the new decor, and it was going to cost just as much to reupholster as to buy a new one.

Unbeknownst to her, before Habitat for Humanity came to pick up all the donated building materials and furniture, I rescued the slipcover. All thirty-some yards of it.

I was going to make a quilt out of it, and still will at some point -- but a few weeks ago I got a PajamaGram catalog in the mail and the wheels started turning -- and I couldn't get them to stop. When they finally did, I had this:

Monkey Girl, her mother, and Samantha the American Girl Doll are all getting matching pj's this Christmas!

I used coordinating stripe from my stash, and some sweatshirt material I was saving for just such an emergency. There was a mile of piping, which I used on the bottom of Monkey Girl's top (it reverses to the slipcover fabric), and made more from the stripe for the bigger pants. The only drawback was that none of the fabric pieces were long enough to do an adult-length leg, so Mom's getting hers cropped, but that's it. I'm pretty proud of the results!

And besides being in love love love with piping now, here's my favorite part: the half-inch buttons for the reversible top. Too cute!

Hope everyone's holiday crafting is going well!

And Merry Christmas!

Best meal EVER...

I have the most wonderful food hangover this morning, thanks to my cousin and her neverending culinary skills. It's no wonder everyone in the family looks forward to Thanksgiving all year long!

Hope everybody had a great turkey day!