Still Bordering (On Insanity!)

Just got done ripping out some diamonds to try and square up the background. Hopefully I'll be able to post a photo of it later this evening. I've got to take Bailey to the vet ($$$$$) at 3:00, so I'm working off and on today and keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't start snowing (yet again) before I get to the vet and back.

Just signed up for the Friday Night Sew-In. Click on the link in my sidebar if you'd like to join.

NEWS AT 11....

No photo tonight as I feel that I've spent the afternoon sitting on the jetty at Half Moon Bay. Too soon to tell whether the day was a total waste. Nothing that can't be fixed, just not happy with today's end results. As I've come to learn with this project, putting it away for the night is the best thing to do now. A fresh look in the morning can usually fix whatever ails it.

I've set the goal to be total completion of the background by the weekend, and that includes any funky embellishment and needle work.

On a positive note, I've met my goal for today (which was to get it into a passable square/rectangle form) and now I've got 4 nights to tweak it into some semblance of 'presentable/competitive'.

Maybe I'll feel it's worthy of a photo tomorrow night. For now, I'm heading for our cozy bed with a magazine or two. G'night.

Be My Valentine?

Happy Valentine's Day. I've got on my red sweater, my Tiffany hearts. The hubs went out to see Avatar. He asked me along, but I really need to be working on the Diamond Challenge as I'm running out of days. And, while I do realize that half the world thinks this is the greatest movie of all time. I'm not a big fan of the whole computer generated movie thing. I'd much rather be watching Johnny Depp in a ton of wicked crazy makeup as the Mad Hatter than some cartoon-like blue creature with Ridley's voice. I'd rather be doing anything else for 3 hours. Sorry.

Friday, I picked up a little more black on black print to add to the background, and while in the quilt shop I picked a key from a bowl of keys that opened the treasure chest and I then pulled an envelope out and won an Easy Angle ruler. Interesting, I'll learn to use it eventually. Apparently it is for cutting HSTs. I've only ever used Thangles, so it will be enlightening, I'm sure. I was tickled pink to win something. Once I'm done with these challenges, I'll give it a whirl.

Continuing on the lucky streak, I won Mega Millions Friday night. Well, only $2.00, but hey, it's a win. (Sadly, I did not win PowerBall yesterday.)

I then spent Friday night working on painstakingly piecing the diamonds together.

Finally figured out they had to be offset (precisely, no less) in order to align once stitched.

(no, that's not black nail polish, it's navy blue)

And then those little dog ears align to create rows where the seams from each are aligned.

And wah-la! -- you've got a nice big diamond of diamonds.

Yesterday was a trip to Sistos in Frederick for their sale. Bought a boatload of cotton thread, black cotton, black batting (for this piece), and a couple of FQs for an online pin cushion challenge. Also went to Kohls looking for some men's oxford shirts for a novelty quilt I'd like to do, but couldn't find any on sale for less than $15 each. The hubs, always the voice of reason, reinforced the fact that this isn't something I need to do today, and seems to think that if I'm just patient for a bit longer, I'll find what I'm looking for at half that price in a few weeks. We'll see.

So rather than sew last night I instead had to reorganize all my thread in order to find a home for all the new cotton. And I labeled each spool with the project it was bought for (sometimes I frighten myself, I'm so organized).

Today, in addition to coloring the hair (see new profile photo above), I've salvaged some of the silk/cotton strips and sashed that diamond block. Now I'm getting ready to cut out some hulking huge diamonds to turn this into a square that meets the challenge size requirements.

After that, it's anyone's guess to what happens. I'm not sure the red batik collection is going to play now. While rinsing haircolor in the shower 'Velvet Elvis' just popped into my head (I think it might have been the fumes from the L'oreal chemicals). Hmmm......

Stay tuned.