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Creature Comforts – Day 24, A Woman and her Couch

By Cynical Woman January 24, 2016 January 24, 2016 Challenges, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Creature Comforts, Crochet, Life and stuff, Sewing

I am creating the coziest place on Earth!

This is my couch. I have had this couch since grad school, which was almost 25 years ago. We replaced the couch cushions on it last summer, but little else has changed until now. The pillows I had originally made for the couch all fell apart. The various afghans my mother made for me have all been stolen by my children. But the couch abides. It is my couch, and I love it.

Three years ago, I tore my right ACL and meniscus cartilidge, and as a result, I spent almost 6 months straight on my couch, first recovering from the injury, then the surgery, and then the physical therapy. I realized then that I never wanted to be parted from my couch, and that my couch deserved the best of everything I could ever give it. I’m just sorry it’s taken me so long to make my couch such nice pillows and a blanket. The blanket should be done by the end of the week. The Jake pillow was just finished today. Next month, I may add another pillow, a cat bolster, perhaps. I spend a lot of time on my couch, and so it deserves every luxury I can give it.

Yes, I love my couch. Of course, I also love my bed, and it’s late, so I think I’m going to go there now. Good night, couch!

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Creature Comforts – Day 21, Appliques Are DONE, Dude!

By Cynical Woman January 21, 2016 January 21, 2016 Challenges, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Creature Comforts, Sewing

Yay! Appliques are done! Now what?

Well, they aren’t perfect, but the appliques are done. Once again, I had issues with the satin stitching. Sometimes I couldn’t get the needle to go through, sometimes the bobbin thread would snarl up. A couple times the thread going through the needle just frayed and split during stitching. Honestly, I don’t know if the problem is my needle (I put a brand new heavy-duty needle in before starting this!), or if the problem is the thread (one brand seems to fray more than the other), or if the problem is just my ancient sewing machine.

Actually, I can test that last theory. Princess wants a cat bolster like the one I made for myself at the beginning of the month, and Pixie has a brand new Singer sewing maching. It’s a basic model, nothing fancy, but it’s brand new and it has a drop-in bobbin, unlike my machine. I may try doing this on her machine the next time around.

And that time will probably come next month. Thinking ahead, I want February’s theme to be “Cats.” We have 3 cats in our household, and I have been thinking about making stuff for them. Then there’s the cat bolster that Princess wants, and Pixie probably wants one too. And I have some paintings of cats in progress, so I have plenty of things to work on this coming month.

Fair warning though. Next month Girl Scout cookie orders come. In, so I will be spending lots of time delivering cookies, as well as working at cookie booths. February is the most brutal month of the year for me. Add to it the fact that it’s also the month of Princess’ birthday and things get very crazy very quickly. I’m already having problems posting every night. Next month may get even worse, but I promise, I will do my best, because you know what? These creative challenges matter to me! I don’t know if anybody else really cares, but I do, so there.

Good night!

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Creature Comforts – Day 19 & 20, Satin Stitch Takes FOREVER!

By Cynical Woman January 20, 2016 January 20, 2016 Challenges, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Creature Comforts, Sewing

These eyes take forEVAR to stitch!

I finally managed to sneak in some sewing time today. I know it doesn’t look like I got very far, but I’ve gotten one eye completely appliqued and the other is half-way done. Doing the satin-stitching on these appliques takes a lot of time. I am getting better at it, but this is not a quick thing to do. I finally got a larger needle (a 110/18) and switched to what seems to be a sturdier brand of thread. I also spent some time this afternoon doing some maintenance on my old Singer sewing machine. That sewing machine was given to me when I was about twelve years old, I think. It used to be set into a table that could be folded up to a small side table when the sewing machine wasn’t being used, but the table fell apart a couple years ago and now I just keep the sewing maching on a folding table I bought from Wally World.

I plan to finish the appliques tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll get any further than that until this weekend. It’s shaping up to be a very busy week, and next week will be just as bad, so I’m working on projects a little bit at a time now.

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Creature Comforts – Day 16 & 17, Blanket and Jake

By Cynical Woman January 17, 2016 January 17, 2016 Challenges, Crafts, Creative Challenges, Creature Comforts, Crochet, Sewing

Once again, I have to stuff two days into one post. January and February are brutally busy times for me, thanks to Girl Scout Cookie sales and Scout Sunday activities. I can get the daily challenge work done, but sometimes I get it done so late at night that I’m too tired to write up even a short blog post. So here are the efforts from today and yesterday!

First, an update on the giant, monstrous granny square blanket…

Granny is looking good!

That’s two rows of granny squares stitched together. The hardest part of this project is weaving in all the ends. Each square has ends to be woven in, and then when I stitch individual squares together to make a strip, I have to weave in those ends as well. That’s a lot of work. However, I spent most of yesterday at a science fiction convention with the kids, and that actually gave me plenty of time to get these two rows all stitched up.

Now here’s today’s work…

I love Jake the Dog!

This is the second pillow I’m making for my couch. I love Adventure Time, and I especially love Jake, so I had to make a pillow of him, because you just KNOW he could be a pillow if he wanted to.

I’m going back to work on the granny square blanket. Hopefully I’ll have more of that and of the Jake pillow to show you tomorrow.