Quiet day, home

First off: Yeah, I found a spaghetti container (it was actually kind of PRESSED on me by the hyperactive owner of one of the shops I was in) but I find it's 1/2 inch shorter than what I actually need...so I can either break my spaghetti, or use it for something else and find a different container. Ugh. I TOLD myself as the guy was enthusing about how GREAT the container was that it didn't look tall enough, but my overly-polite nature kicked in and I bought it anyway. (Also, I just wanted to get out of there....there's a certain hyper-helping, wants-to-be-your-new-best-friend personality type that frankly scares me a little). I'm thinking I may use it to hold smaller pasta (like elbow macaronis) instead.

Didn't find a light fixture, but I didn't really look. There is a Home Depot in the same strip mall as the Target so next time I get down there I will look there.

***

I stayed home all day yesterday. I don't get to do that often. It was nice, I got lots of stuff done (in addition to the usual everyday stuff, like an hour of piano practice and working out). I re-started my commitment to doing an hour of research-work (either collecting data, analyzing data, writing up results/revising manuscripts, or reading research articles). I'm thinking having my teaching day not start until 11 means that I can get in an hour of research early (it only takes me an hour to prep for both lecture classes; mainly re-reading stuff and updating). One of the articles I read had a table that suggested a format for the table of results in my paper, so that's good.

I also got all the rest of the "Sherbet Pips" blocks sewn together; I just have to make time sometime to lay them out and then I can start putting that quilt together.

I also cut the pieces for, and sewed up the blocks for, a VERY small quilt. The pattern is from the "Simplify" book I bought last year (my birthday trip). It's called "Little Man" and is (obviously) designed as a baby quilt, but will also work as a small lap/footwarmer quilt, or maybe as a wall quilt. I used some interesting magenta-based fabrics - you can see them in the second photo here. The line is called "Tufted Tweets" but I find myself thinking of it as "Birds and chairs" (three of the prints feature either chairs or sofas, and there is a small yellow bird that shows up in most of them). So I'm calling this my "Birds and Chairs" quilt. (I did have to press into service two other fabrics from my stash because the fat quarters I had were less generously sized than the fat quarters that the pattern author used. This is actually pretty common. Fortunately I had bits of two other fabrics that coordinated well enough). The rest of the quilt top is going to be 100% out-of-stash; I have a yellow fabric that will work for the sashing, and another reddish purple that will work as one border, and a floral for the second border.

I also spent a little time flipping through quilt magazines and books and found a pattern that's what I want to use with some cute sort of "Swiss folk-y" looking fabric I have on hand (one print has cuckoo clocks, another one shows chalets...)

I don't know how many quilts I have in the planning stages but it's a LOT. Then again, it's nice to have the fabric all piled up together with the pattern for those times when I have the time and inclination to cut or sew.

I also hand quilted some on the top that's (still) in the frame. I do have the inner border finished now, though there's still quite a bit left to do on the second border. (However, I pulled out the batting for the NEXT quilt - this one will be smaller and simpler and hopefully will take me less time to quilt - and set it to "relax." I don't know how necessary this really is but I was always told that you need to let the batting lie out flat for at least a day (they generally come rolled up tightly in a plastic bag). So I'm looking forward to starting quilting on a NEW quilt sometime.)