The Quilt (Link)

Check this link in case you miss 'The Quilt' post, which I actually posted today but Blogger thinks it was Dec. 10th. Long story....

http://cafejabbaccino.blogspot.com/2009/12/quilt.html

Mysteries of Udolpho

So, I'm reading The Mysteries of Udolpho because I'm a ridiculous Jane Austen fan and a complete nerd.

In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland gets into trouble when she reads too many "trashy novels". Of course I had to know what was considered a "trashy novel" back in 1803..... plus the novel is mentioned enough that it almost seems like a minor character.

So, I'm on page 230 and Emily has finally arrived at the Castle Udolpho. Oooohhhh....so creepy*. The first 1/3 of the book set up her life with her father, how she met her true love Valancourt and how she ended up separated from both of them and in her wretched circumstances.

Five pages after she arrived at the castle, she discovered a mysterious painting, found a secret staircase and learned of the ghosts that are hanging out in the castle. Sweet. The book reads just like I expected a really old gothic novel would - super dramatic and way more descriptive than any kind of trashy novel written these days.**

So, yesterday I met up with as good friend of mine - J. He is absolutely hilarious and often makes me crack up unexpectedly. So I told him about Udolpho and his immediate comeback?

"Oooh! Like Scooby Doo?"

Great, now I'll be expecting Shaggy to come around the corner any minute and discover that the evil Montoni has a fake beard and is really Emily's long-lost cousin out for revenge.


*Claire - if you survive reading Dracula, you might want to put this one on your list of creepy reads.
**My only, complaint is, the amount of punctuation!!! Damn, Ann needed, to learn to edit. (Then again it almost adds to the dramatic effect of the book. It's like William Shatner is reading it to me.)

Bad Room Mate #16

This is one of my favourite sights that only happens around Christmas.

No, seriously!! It's absolutely hilarious when you are hanging out on the sofa and you hear a soft *tinkle* sound, look around and notice the tree gently shaking all over...ornaments swaying....gentle rustling....

It's only then that you look down and see the culprit: a stripey tail hanging out at the bottom.

Etsy Favourites

I've never given friends or family a "list" of gifts for myself, that's just not what it's about for me. Sure, some people are really hard to buy for and for those people in my life I keep lists of ideas throughout the year - seriously I do.

But, now that my mom and I live so far apart it's really hard for her to think of things that I would want or need so she usually asks me for ideas, not specific items but ideas. This year I had a most excellent idea - I shared my Etsy Favourites with her.

This way if she wanted she could buy something that she knew I would like or simply get ideas and go shopping herself. Brilliant!!

I emailed her when I found this bag on Etsy because I loved it so much. I told her in the email that if she had no intention of buying it for me to let me know because I would buy it myself.


A few days later we were chatting on the phone and I asked her if she saw the bag. Here is how our conversation went:

J: So, what do you think?
M: Well, I'm not sure.......
J: If you totally aren't interested just let me know.
M: Well......
J: I'm in front of the computer now, let me just look at it again.....oh NO. It SOLD!!!
M: (silence)
J: (panicking) Oh crap! She only had one, maybe I'll write her and ask her to make me another one...
M: No, DON'T. Merry Fucking Christmas, I BOUGHT IT.

Mom's dropping the f-bomb, Jabba's laughing her head off. It was one great Christmas moment.

The Quilt

I've been waiting all year to post about this...

In February I decided to make a quilt for my parents. I went into Vancouver to go to Fabricana with Rawbean so she could help me pick out the fabric. I need her guidance because I tend to lose focus in that store. So these are the fabrics - my mom loves green, yellow and browns so it wasn't too hard.

Rawbean also lent me her cutting mat, straight edge and rotary cutter - thank GOD. Can you imagine cutting all these squares out with scissors?! Not happening.

Then the most fun part was laying out the fabric for the top.

(Keep in mind that I wasn't working when I made this. If I was, I'm estimating it would have taken me approximately 5 years to make this thing. Plus, I totally winged it when it came to the assembly. I planned my moves as they came and only thought one step ahead. Otherwise I would have given up.)

So anyway, next came sewing together all the squares. At first I started pinning the squares together, but realized after the first two squares that this seemed to be a waste of time. Instead I zipped them through the machine two squares at a time, making a long row. Then I added the next row to the one I just did......24 times or whatever. Then I sewed the other way.
After that, I attached the borders...yeah......I tend to over-complicate things. I took an easy detail and made it ridiculously difficult but got it right in the end after going to the local quilting fabric shop and begging the ladies to help me.

After this, honestly - it wasn't much fun - attaching the batting and the back. Do you know how hard it is to get pieces of fabric this big to lay flat, nevertheless three pieces of fabric to sandwich together and be flat?!

I finally ended up taping the top fabric down to the floor, then putting the batting on top of that. Still, it was frustrating and hard and after that it seemed to even take forever to sew everything together.

After this, I tied french knots at every intersection of squares to bind everything together.
I do not hand sew - ever.

I should also mention here that The Bad Room Mate wouldn't leave me alone the entire time. There is a reason he is in a lot of these pictures: wheneverI left the quilt lying around he was all over it. Whether I was putting it through the machine or working with it on my lap, I couldn't get away from him.

Then, in typical Jabba style, I procrastinated until almost the last night before we left for my parents. As Brad predicated in June - I was up panicking the night before trying to finish it.

So now it's done, and I've given it to my parents. We've been sitting next to the fireplace and huddling under The Quilt since Christmas morning because they live in "the frozen tundra" (Saskatchewan).

Seriously, tonight it's -25C.

Prawn Santa!

Behold.

It's Prawn Santa! We bought him last year to mark the year we got married and moved to Victoria. Again, please note his fishing-line-antennae and his sparkly Santa suit.

Next to him is another mental ornament that I'm quite fond of. I found this gem at a fantastic little shop on Granville and West 7th. I bought it for Brad and kept it hidden for a year, well worth it. Please note his sparkly red toe nail polish and fuzzy lime-green trim.

Because we live with The Bad Room Mate, every year we hang cheap plastic candy canes along the bottom of our tree to keep him distracted from the fabulous ornaments like Prawn Santa and the mental elephant. Our tree is also ornament-top-heavy because anything near the bottom is fair game for chewing or bashing around.

These candy canes have been through three years of abuse now and are in various states of disrepair. Some are completely chewed up and others are totally intact. Ziggy hates them, he'll walk all the way across the room only to give one of them a whack and send it flying.

So our tree is up, the plastic mistletoe is hanging in the door way, and we'll finish our Christmas shopping this weekend. After that I'm really looking forward to just sitting back next to the tree with a good book and a glass of rum for the rest of the season.

In between ordering the Bad Room Mate away from the tree of course.

IT Guys are the Best

I use Windows at work. Window 64-bit. Apparently this is a good thing for Revit, but it really sucks for Itunes, meaning that I can't install Itunes at all.

Too bad because I love sharing music and seeing what other people are listening to. But I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to work without Itunes at my new job.

So today I was chatting with a guy in my office who is the unofficial IT guy. His eyes lit up as he pointed to an empty workstation piled up with a bunch of junk. He said "Oh! I just found a way to get you Itunes!"


He rummaged around and emerged victoriously holding an iMac. My eyes got huge as he walked over to my desk and plopped it down next to my monitor, plugged it in and it came to life.

Seriously.

I am now one of those Two-Monitor people, except one of them is a Mac and is there solely for the purpose of Itunes.

See? It always pays off to befriend the IT guy.