This and that.

Thanks for the nice comments on the snowman quilt. It is one I had quilted on a longarm machine - I do not remember the name of the star pattern but it's one that's commercially available for longarm quilting, so probably lots of other shops offer it as well.

The quilt has a wool batting, which I also like. Wool seems to hold heat on cold nights better than polyester, and it seems to release it better on warmer nights.

Like tonight will be. It's something like 71* here today, supposed to be 75* tomorrow (what will I wear? It's been so long since it's been that hot). It's supposed to storm, also, and drop into the 50s by Tuesday. So I am preparing myself for a migraine tomorrow. (I've had a headache today; I can't tell if it's allergies or the weather change but neither an Excedrine Migraine nor a Claritin have caused me to entirely shake it.)

I've been working off and on this weekend on the various "long term" projects; as a result it feels like I've done NOTHING, because it's incremental progress on something that will take more weeks to see the end of. Mostly on Clapotis, because I can read while I work on that. But also some on the quilt in the frame.

I'm sort of glad there was no enthusiasm for a Youth Group super bowl party (no enthusiasm from the youth, I mean); first off I don't care one whit about either of the teams involved, and second, I'm just glad to not have that planning/being around other people who might be noisy/eating greasy food like pizza with this headache.

So I've had the Puppy Bowl on on Animal Planet. It's kind of a brilliant thing for people who aren't very active tv watchers - you can put it on, go about your business, and stop to look at it occasionally. No narrative to lose the thread of, just cute puppies. I think I said before that we need a "cute baby animals" cable channel - just footage of puppies and kittens and baby ducks and ponies and maybe some of the more exotic animals like baby giraffes and baby polar bears.

It would be the perfect thing to show in dentist's waiting rooms, for patients who are nervous and upset before going in. (Though I will remark my dentist has taken to showing "infomercials" of cosmetic dentistry procedures: not a good thing to have to watch or listen to before you go in to the chair, if you're the least bit uncomfortable with dentistry).

And it would also be good for airport and other travel-hell waiting rooms, also. I don't like being made to watch endless loops of "Headline News" while I'm waiting; at the best of times watching much news makes me twitchy and unhappy and sometimes even downright despondent over the human condition. Which is not a good state to be in before one boards a plane, or after one has just heard that there will be yet another 3 hour delay before the train arrives. But puppies would make it better. Most people like puppies, don't they? I mean, even the people who claim to dislike cute?

I had originally planned on sewing up the rest of the squares for the Straits of Georgia quilt but meh, sitting at the sewing machine just didn't appeal to me today. I have a couple more ideas for quilt tops I want to piece and I tend to be a one-project-at-a-time person (at least as far as piecing is concerned; I'm too afraid of losing all the little bits or forgetting how things go together if I put things away for very long).

I also have a bunch of fabric purchased yesterday on an "I'm freaking out and can't sit in the house and read science any more" trip to JoAnn's. I've bought several of the "Aranzi Aronzo" pattern books over the past few months (The Cute Book, Cute Dolls, and Fun Dolls. And yes, they are all different books, despite the similar names). I eventually plan to make the lizard toy, and the "Bunny Bug" and the "Bongo Bongo" panda and several others out of there. Because the patterns, although simple, make me smile. There's something about Japanese cute that gets to me - even though the patterns are all pretty much non-complex "flat" toys (which I normally disdain making - too simple and not realistic enough). But somehow the books play on something in my psyche and make me want to make a lot of the toys in there. I'd love to have an old chaise longue (and yes, that IS the right name: it literally means "long chair") where I could line up a lot of the critters I've made and be able to look at them every morning when I woke up. (I have the perfect place for a chaise longue; right across the room from the foot of my bed, under the windows. I just lack a chaise. And I'm twitchy about buying a used one after my Flea Experience with some antique armchairs I bought. So unless I can find a decently-made, not-outrageously-priced new one, I think I'll remain chaise-less).

I even found the tiny styrofoam-like pellets (like what used to be in the old beanbag chairs of the 70s) that the "bunny bug" pillow calls for. It will be my first time using them and although all my common sense tells me I'm going to hate messing with the $*(%& staticky things, still, being able to try a new supply appeals to me. (Maybe I'll pick a non-windy day and set up outdoors when it's time to fill the pillow).