It's been a while...

I really am bad at this regular updating thing. Whoops?

Since last updating, I've completed purple Christmas scarf, started and completed green Christmas scarf, picked out fabrics from my stash for a Disney Princess quilt, and not done ANYTHING at all on the Black and White and Red All Over quilt. Seriously. I'm four blocks away and have no motivation whatsoever. *sigh*

BUT--I did get my Owl Patch quilt back from Miss Nancy, and it looks gorgeous! And, apparently, she got enough compliments on it while she was quilting that she would like to hang it in the shop. =) I realize that this isn't a big deal to most of you quilters who have had your work in quilt shows and other impressive places... but it's a first for me!

And of course, as soon as it went on the bed, Byron wanted to hop on and cover it in his dog hair. We had a few words about that. Now to hurry up and bind it. *sigh* Have I mentioned that I hate binding?

Oops, I did it again...

I've got four blocks and a border left before the top of Black and White and Red All Over is finished... so close. And yet... that fabric I bought the other day? The really cute Christmas fabric? Yeah, I started a new project. It's adorable! And small! And it'll be finished by tomorrow at the latest... But now that I've moved on, I don't want to go back to BWRAL. It's not that I don't like it--I do. I'm really looking forward to see how it turns out. But it's not new and fresh and exciting like all the other ideas swirling around in my head.

And when I went out today, I was bad. Again. I realize that Thomas Kincade is not considered a "real" artist by anyone who at least makes a stab at having good taste in art. But I have to admit that I love his Disney artwork. (Okay, I just love Disney in general.) And I found a cross stitch pattern for a Kincade Beauty and the Beast scene! So adorable! Must. Resist. Urge. To. Start. Working. On. Immediately. We'll see how long I hold out...

But at least I finished the Christmas scarf I have been working on the past couple weeks... I was watching Castle, sniffling at a cute proposal scene while tying in the ends. Now to wrap it, label it, and stick it on the "Completed Christmas Presents" shelf... and pull out a different color yarn and start working on another (slightly different) one. I really hate this yarn, but it works so well with the pattern that I keep buying it.

I think I'll keep Castle-ing while I'm working on the next one. Castle and Kate bickering makes for a great crafting soundtrack...

Forgive me, Husband, for I have fallen off the wagon...

Well, I wasn't all that *on* the wagon to begin with... but I had decided that I wouldn't buy any more yarn until at least the new year and probably not until after we move next summer. (Theoretically, I will be making some sort of effort to actually use all the bucketfulls of yarn in my closet between now and then.) And I had declared that I wasn't going to buy any fabric during the month of August.

But the mister has been gone for a while now. He got home last Friday evening, only to turn around again and leave Monday morning for at least another week, if not longer. And even though I'm pretty used to him being gone, it still makes me sad. And you know what helps to deal with a case of the sads?

Fabric! And yarn! And Eeyore appliques!

I brought home some adorable Christmas fabric (that I picked with a purpose in mind, I swear! It's in the washer right now--I'm cutting it tonight.), three giant skeins of a yarn that I *hate* working with, but is perfect for a pattern that I plan to use for several Christmas gifts, and an Eeyore applique. Because I love Eeyore. And he totally understands what I'm going through.

I'm four blocks away from finishing the top of Black and White and Red All Over, about two-thirds of the way through Christmas-present scarf, and am determined to make SERIOUS PROGRESS this week while I'm alone with the dog.

Yes, Byron. Daddy left us. But he'll be back. And while he's gone, we're going to be productive. Really productive. Well, I'll be productive. You'll sleep.

Weekly Update

Last Week: Not so good on the quilting front.

Sunday: 2 blocks, 2 hours crochet
Monday: 4 blocks, 3 hours crochet
Tuesday: 2 blocks, 1 hour crochet
Wednesday: 2 hours crochet
Thursday: 2 blocks, 1 hour crochet
Friday: block layout and planning
Saturday: 1 hour crochet

The mister was gone for the whole week, so I figured I could devote more time than usual to quilting--knock out the last 18 blocks for Black and White and Red All Over and put a border on... Yeah. That didn't happen. Not even close.

But the mister leaves again tomorrow for another week (or maybe two), so I have another chance to be productive. AND tomorrow is UFO day at the local quilt shop... so hopefully I'll be extra-productive. We'll see.

I can see the light...

Black and White and Red All Over is this close to being finished. Well, the top anyway. And I am dying to post pictures of it... but it's a Christmas gift. Which means it has to stay under wraps until December. Boo. I'll be quilting it using my embroidery machine... which I've only done once before. I'm excited to see how it turns out, but a little nervous...

In other crafty news... When I finished the varigated purple baby afghan (see previous posts), I pulled out some leftover yarn that had been sitting around for a few years and started on an afghan for my dog. Or, more specifically, an afghan to protect the couch from my dog. The afghan I'm using for that purpose now is one I crocheted in high school--my first project that wasn't a scarf--and it's being slowly destroyed. Hopefully I can get the new couch armor done before Byron completely kills it.

But the problem is... the new Byron-blanket is boring. The colors are bland (chosen because they'll hide dirt pretty well), and I'm just doing a very basic double crochet, back and forth and back and forth. And I'm making the stitches as tight as possible (dog nails!), which is not my preferred way of doing things... so my hands get tired faster.

So I started another crochet project. It's a gorgeous, oversize lacy scarf in a varigated purple boucle yarn. I don't think I'm going to even touch the Byron-blanket again until it's finished. (And I'm pretty sure I'll finish my next crochet project--fillet crochet baby blanket featuring DUCKS!--before I get around to finishing the Byron-blanket.) I'd show you a picture of the scarf... but it's another Christmas present.

I foresee that this blog is going to be exceptionally boring and pictureless until after Christmas. *sigh*

Academic Dishonesty... and Quilting.

At knitting club last night (yes, they let me come even though I crochet) we got onto a conversation about acadmic dishonesty and plagarism. As someone who has taught or TA'd at the high school, community college, and university levels, I've seen my fair share of plagarism. (And one of the women last night shared a story about her friend, who had a student who plagarised a paper--and it was his teacher's own work!)

But as we talked about stealing someone else's work in the academic setting, I started wondering about the crafting world and the oftentimes touchy subject of patterns and the "borrowing" thereof.

I'm one of those people who rarely sticks to a quilt pattern. I have plenty of books and magazines full of patterns, and I happily give credit when I use a published pattern (or combine two or three of them). But I am often inspired by pictures of quilts that I see when I'm browsing through QuilterBlogs. If I fall in love with the quilt instantly, I'll bookmark that particular post... but far too often, I end up sitting down with my graph paper (or more recently, EQ7) and vaguely remembering something I saw a couple weeks ago and thought was pretty, and sketching out a design that is similar, or just "inspired by."

So the question I have is--is this quilting plagarism? I don't make quilts to sell--only for my personal use or for gifts. And I'm sure many of the quilts I see and love weren't designed by the blogger who made and posted pictures of them, so it would be extremely difficult to go back and figure out who the original designer of the pattern was. And then comes the additional complication that sometimes people think alike--and two people who have never met or seen each other's work may design very similar quilts.

What to do? To blithely quilt on, giving credit when I can, and hoping no one jumps out of the woodwork to accuse me of theft if a quilt I designed was inspired by one of theirs? Or to stress and meticulously document every quilt I see that I think I might ever be inclined to imitate?

I think, for now, I'm picking the first option.

Weekly Update

Not as good this week as last, but some decent progress made.

Sunday: 1 hour crochet
Monday: 2 blocks Black and White and Red All Over quilt, 2 hours crochet
Tuesday: 1 hour crochet, block assembly and layout
Wednesday: 1 hour crochet
Thursday: 1 hour crochet, 2 blocks BWRAO
Friday: very sick, no work completed
Saturday: recovering, no work completed