Well, I took advantage of being in for the day to finally finish the shabby-chic pastel rose quilt:




I had this one quilted back before Thanksgiving but it had been sitting waiting on the binding since then. (For non-quilters: putting on the binding is a big task. You have to cut long strips of fabric - enough to go totally around the outside of the quilt [in this case, some 350"], sew them together, fold and iron them, match the raw edge of the folded strip up to the raw edge of the quilt, machine stitch it down, then take and fold the binding around and hand-sew the folded edge down. I always procrastinate on it because it's so labor-intensive.) But I decided I felt like doing it today. I decided to make my bed up with fresh sheets (even though I had done that recently) in honor of the new quilt.

I also got a package in the mail - this was something I had ordered for myself. Somehow I ran across an ad for Lisa Souza Dyeworks. She sells a hand-painted sockyarn (called Sock!) in lots of neat colorways for a pretty reasonable price as sockyarn goes ($14 for a skein that will easily make a pair of socks for an adult - it's something like 480 yards. That might even be a small adult sized pair and a baby/small child pair). That's as cheap or cheaper than Regia or Opal, and it's hand dyed yarn.

I bought a couple skeins - one in Petroglyph and one in Wild Things (the colors make me think of the critters in the Maurice Sendak children's book - I don't know if that's what she had in mind but it made me think of it). Well, I ordered on Wednesday I guess, and she e-mailed me that I got in "just under the wire" before she was leaving for Stitches West. The yarn came today - from California. That's super fast. If she's always that fast on turnaround, I'm going to be ordering from her again. And the yarn feels really nice - and it's washable merino.

I love that there are all these small businesspeople/artisans out there that are getting the chance to sell their wares all around the country via the Internet.

She also has a blog. (but then again, these days, who doesn't? If Andy Warhol were alive today, he'd probably say, "In the future, everyone will have a blog.")

Well, now I need to decide if I still feel like going to the effort to make rice pudding to have with dinner. I had thought of it earlier today but got involved in other things and haven't cooked the rice yet.