More on that quilt

I told you earlier I was working on a new quilt. It has become a bit of an obsession in fact. I’m calling it my “Hey I’m getting margin back in my life quilt” because it represents a lot more than just scraps of fabric. 

So let’s pick up where we left off…
10. Change your mind about the quilt size and decide to make a lot more squares. Go back and repeat steps 3 through 9 again until you have the right number of squares. My quilt has grown from a twin to a queen so I had a lot more squares to make.
11. Iron all the completed squares flat.
12. Trim your completed squares with the rotary cutter so they are square and exactly 8” (in my case anyway). 
13. Once all of your chevron squares are completed, and ironed, and trimmed to be square, you get to lay them out.  This took me awhile. How to sort the squares?? There were so many different colors, patterns, themes to figure out what order to put them in. Not to mention now I’m making a queen sized quilt- so I’ve outgrown the dining room table. I eventually decided on the living room floor since that is the biggest space. There are a few obstacles to using the floor:

After the fact, I wished I had done a video of the evening of me laying out the squares, and the dogs taking turns sniffing, laying on, and messing up the squares – really quite funny and not terribly productive. But it is like a magnet, if I lay something on the floor, pretty much anything, the dogs are going to lay on it. So we bonded over quilt squares as I arranged and rearranged and then straightened and re-straightened…

14. Once you have the quilt squares all laid out, you can start sewing the chevron squares into rows.  Mine is eleven squares by eleven squares. And of course, the dogs wanted to get in on that as well.
 
Stay tuned on finishing the quilt top and then the actual quilting, backing, binding, etc. 

A new quilt in the works

Here’s how it goes…
1. Clean out your sewing area and realize how many small scraps of fabric you have from dozens of previous projects (including a bunch of extra squares from the quilt you made for your bed 7 or 8 years ago).
2. Get inspired by some blog where they were showcasing the Chevron quilt. Download the instructions. Decide it’s the perfect use for all of those scraps of beautiful fabric. Completely disregard the part about using solids since most of your scraps have some kind of pattern. meh. Decide that of course you have the time and energy to make a quilt right now.
3. Start cutting out squares. At home, on vacation, squares, squares, squares. And not the size they called for in the instructions, because 4 7/8” squares seems harder than 5” squares somehow. Finally finish cutting out a ton of squares, in the 200 range. Each square needs a matching one. This is great fun on vacation, in the sun, while visiting with friends and watching munchkins. This is also great fun at home avoiding cleaning the bathroom. The cutting takes a long time, but I found it to be enjoyable, especially using the rotary cutter.

4. Slice squares in half on the diagonal to make triangles. Fast. Fairly simple. This gives you four triangles (at least) of each pattern. Some of the fabric I had a lot more than 4, some just 4. Meh. It’s a scrappy quilt, we’re going with the randomness of it all. 
5. Start matching sets of patterns – 4 triangles of 2 patterns to make the squares. Even better, have your crafty friend matching patterns up for you while you begin the sewing.
6. Sew those triangles together along the diagonal to make squares. Four matching squares of each set of patterns. Get most of the way through the matching and about half way through the sewing. Take a break (and by break, it might be a coffee break, or it might be a ‘drive home from up north’ break, whatever works for you).
7. Get out the ironing board. Turn on a movie. Start ironing those squares flat and then clip the uneven corners. Do this for a long time (well, get through your stack of squares). 
8. Once that batch is ironed, back to the machine, sew the four squares together to make a chevron pattern blocks.
 
Note: Be careful not to do this. You’ll have to rip them out to correct it. Or scavenge your scraps to see if you have any scraps left to make more half squares to avoid ripping out. Or decide you didn’t really want that square anyway. It is a scrappy quilt after all.
9. Repeat steps 6-8 until you have enough of the chevron squares. So far I have 50 completed chevron squares (40 to go) and enough of the smaller squares ready to be sewn into the remaining chevron squares (I think). I thought this could take me years to even get to this point, but it goes pretty fast once you’re sitting there sewing. And I like this because there are a few different steps so you can mix it up if you have the attention span of a flea like me.
 
Even the clippings look fun!

The End

On Monday night, I was out watering the chickens. Refilled their food for the week. Checked on the coop. The usual. Then I left for a few days up north with a bunch of my friends early on Tuesday morning. As I was getting ready on Tuesday morning, I let the dogs out to do their business (as I do every morning), fed them, and headed out. Nothing out of the ordinary except that I was heading out of town for a few days instead of to the office.

My roommate Leslie arrived home at the end of the work day and let the dogs out, same as always. Except it wasn’t. There was squawking almost immediately. And a dead chicken almost as quickly. She ran outside to see Buck (visiting dog) taking a bite out of Marigold, as Maggie and Suzie left Edna’s already dead carcass to come help. Leslie  screamed for the dogs who dropped the chicken and went inside as instructed.  I got a panicked phone call up north full of apologies and the bad news. Okay. I don’t understand how they had time to rip a corner of the chicken wire (2 layers) open in the 10 minutes they were out in the morning. But clearly it was enough for the chickens to escape and be free ranging in the yard when Leslie got home and let the dogs out. Epic chicken fail. Sigh. I told her to pick up the bodies and put them in the outside trash which would be going out in a day or two anyway. And of course, apologized repeatedly that the tragedy happened on her watch and assured her that it wasn’t her fault. Such is life.

An hour later I listened to one of the funniest voicemails ever. One of the chickens wasn’t all the way dead. And as Leslie went to scoop up the carcass, it fluttered and flew up into her face, causing much panic and dropping of the other dead chicken. And now the neighbors were out in the yard. Awesome.  Her brave fiancé arrived on the scene, covered the hole in the coop with plywood, and helped move the mostly dead chicken into the now-secure coop and the all-the-way-dead-chicken to the dumpster. Rest in peace Edna.

I called my mom who agreed to go pick up said mostly-dead-chicken to either provide chicken hospice or nursing care, whichever was required. And mostly to save my very flustered roommate from further dealings with a mostly-dead-chicken in my absence. As the story goes, my mom got Marigold home and into the solitary confinement coop at her house. Gave her food and water. And the next morning went out to find poor Marigold on her back, legs sticking straight into the air, dead. Rest in peace Marigold.

So… the two roosters were the lone survivors of this failed chicken project. They are running around happily at my parents fertilizing hens to their hearts content and grossing out my 16 year old brother.

In case you’re counting:

• Dogs: 4
• Nature: 2 (roosters not hens)
• Reenie: 0

Operation Chicken 2012: Epic Fail

Extreme Cuteness

I spent part of last week up north with a bunch of my friends. I wanted to post a couple pictures to give you a flavor of the week… but I couldn’t choose. So pictures of my favorite kids up there instead…

Yeah. My friends have some pretty cute and very delightful kids. I am blessed to be part of the gang.

Angst and Angus

Angst: I’ve alluded to the war with the neighbors without getting into details… and I’ll still try to keep it brief.  You probably remember me putting up a privacy fence a couple months back so I could at least garden without an audience. Since that time, the neighbor has been rather hostile. Awesome. I certainly didn’t want to start a war, but putting up that fence was necessary because of him!! Anyway, a few weeks back I get a letter in the mail from the landlords (these people bought the house last summer as a rental- they’ve never lived there and aren’t any relation to the people who used to own the house). Anyway, the landlord was passing on a complaint that there was a “foul stench” coming from my chicken coop. They wrote that they didn’t want there to be conflict between neighbors and that though I am allowed to have chickens, I am not allowed to have a foul stench so there should be some sort of agreement between us, blah blah blah. The best line was the “We’ve received reports that you voluntarily cleaned the coop recently which we appreciate….” The whole letter was obviously an effort by the landlords to try to address the complaint from their neighbor but instead just proved what a jerk the neighbor is and the whole thing was unfounded. There is no “foul stench!”  I’m so paranoid about a foul stench because I hate the smell of chickens myself!! I even had both of my roommates and a few friends go do the sniff test—no foul stench. This guy is simply a jerk, pissed about the fence, and trying to cause trouble however he can. Awesome.

I waited a couple days to cool off and then sent them a scathing direct three page letter telling them why the complaint happened (privacy fence angst), why I put up the fence, and my list of complaints about their tenants. I tried to keep it reasonable—I left out the strangeness of the grown man walking RC cars for hours every day—but I gave them a piece of my mind over the profanity, the music, the cigarette butts in my garden, the intrusiveness of the neighbor, the middle of the night yelling fights, etc. I agreed that I would move the coop further from the shared fence and asked what they intended to do about the many complaints I have with their tenants. I also reassured them that I wanted to come to some peaceful resolution and would be happy to discuss the matter by phone if they wanted. I had a couple people give me feedback before sending it. And after reading it, Jenny predicted the landlord wouldn’t respond at all since I’d laid out quite a case against their tenants. 

Three weeks later… no response from the landlord. And nothing has really changed with the neighbors. I still woke up to the sound of the neighbor’s incredibly loud music coming through the wall at 8.30 on a Sunday morning. There’s still a ridiculous amount of swearing and profane music on the other side of my fence. And the guy is still a creep.

In light of this war, however, the chicken situation is more sensitive. Like He-Len crowing loudly at 6.00 am! Roosters are now allowed in the city limits because of the crowing. I get it. Once it was clear He-Len was a rooster and had found his voice, he had to go and there was more urgency considering it would give the neighbors a legitimate complaint.

Angus: Formerly known as Agnes. Just a couple days after we’d removed the noisy He-Len from the Chicken Shack, Leslie heard an attempted crow in the backyard. Now Angus and He-Len were the same kind of chicken (I had started with two of each kind). And compared to He-Len, Angus looked like a hen. Bigger than the other two hens, but considerably smaller than He-Len. Since I hadn’t heard anything, I did eye Angus carefully and notice his tail feathers were starting to come in. Darn. So much for “sexed” chicks that were all supposed to be hens.

Tuesday morning I woke up at the usual time (6 am) and suddenly heard some loud, awkward crowing from the backyard. Angus was finding (or attempting to find) his voice. Clearly a rooster. And it was time for him to go. Tuesday evening, with the help of my roommates, I herded Angus into a box and delivered him to my mom’s chicken haven in the country, where he can crow to his little hearts content.

And then there were two…

In case you’re counting, the breakdown looks something like this.

• 6 chicks to start with (all supposedly hens)
• 2 killed by the dogs- too early to determine sex
• 2 roosters – both removed and sent to live at my parents’
• 2 alleged hens – remaining at the Homestead. Hopefully these ones are really hens and will lay some darn good eggs to make it all worthwhile.

This whole Operation Chicken continues to be quite an adventure!

My Life is Awesome: Craft Night

I can’t let this event go by without honorable mention. On Wednesday evening, we had Craft Night at the Homestead. Jodi from Sew Fearless was in town (hooray) and came with her hand embroidery project. Karen from Domestic Bliss (who lives in town) arrived with a skirt to sew. Andrea arrived with her sewing machine and a dress she was making for her daughter. Kara came with a gorgeous shrug to crochet and a bottle of wine. And I pulled out some fabric and cut out new potholders. It was bliss. Crafting with a bunch of crafty friends. Catching up on life with a bunch of fabulous women. Naturally I was so busy reveling in the bliss I forgot to get any pictures of this fabulous evening so you’ll just have to imagine it.
My Life is Awesome. And Craft Night is totally worth the hype.