Wordless Wednesday

Mixed-technique Valentine

Only two weeks late! Good thing the cats don't care (not to mention I could work faster if they didn't insist on sitting on my hands every time I sit down to work).



I need to devise a name for the technique where I fuse little (about 1/2") scraps from another project to a backing fabric, then layer with a sheer fabric and machine stitch. It's not original, but if I give it an original name I can sell it (except I will never make a critical mass of these things, because I really only use scraps from other projects--I don't want to turn a yard of good fabric into 1/2" scraps--and it takes an astonishingly long time to fuse them all down flat with no background showing).

But I like this mixed-technique look, and love the flower sequins.


And The E.B.E. Project rolls on. This one says his name is Melvin.

And what do you do when that doesn't work?

Get a cat.

Caturday

Today is National Margarita Day (break while I lol at this sort of thing needing an "official website"). Also the first warm sunny Saturday of 2014. So of course, I spent it at work, after working long past beer o'clock last night.

But this is a bragplain; my stuff is righteous, my boss brought in lunch, and I scored an afternoon off in the middle of March, date TBD, when unlike today it's not too muddy and floody to do anything. Bwahaha.

Jetzt...trinken!

Wordless Wednesday

Scrapbag 10-in-10 Challenge: Münchner Ausländer

In December, my Local Quilt Guild announced the 2014 challenge would be to create a list of 10 UFOs (UnFinished Objects) numbered 1 through 10, and for each of the first ten months of 2014 they would pick a number and you have until the next month to finish the project. The random number makes it harder to work ahead on something big, or schedule something small for vacation.

Once I applied the "this project has 11951 hand-sewn pieces and was designed to take the rest of my life to complete" filter, I did not have 10 UFOs (although I hope there's a box in the garage because I thought there was a table runner...), so I had to fill in a few months with new things and a charity quilt.

First up for February is Münchner Ausländer, a mutation of The E.B.E. Project. Why should the Münchner Kindl get all the Bier und Radieschen?



I'm not entirely certain how to explain this to a group of ladies who mostly make table runners and baby quilts and wedding presents (and I have to practice pronouncing "Münchner" because it kind of sounds like a hairball).


1 down, 9 to go. I wonder where I left my list.

Sign of Spring/Inappropriate Words

The Robert Indiana exhibition opens to the public tomorrow: that makes tomorrow spring.

I saw it today. Here is my Autoportrait, that I created with an iPad app that accompanies the exhibition:



The app rejected "BEER" as an input into my self-portrait: "Please do not use inappropriate words." And it took me about three tries to figure out that was the word they were objecting to--I was trying to find the hidden dirty word in "LAKEMICHIGAN."

This is an art museum. They have artwork hailing Dionysus, a tapestry created from liquor bottles (one of my inspirations), and even Baby Jesus' weezus on full display, but "beer" is an inappropriate word. (On the bright side--guess they won't be mounting any Tracy Emin exhibitions in my lifetime. Heh.)

They have Sun King on tap in their cafeteria, but "beer" is an inappropriate word.

I'm so amused.

Wordless Wednesday

Sunday Brunch

I say "the birdfeeder is the best cat toy evah!" but I spend most of my weekend mornings watching the action myself (as I type this, the cats are asleep well away from the backyard windows, harrumph).

The feeders are squirrel-proofed, but I accidentally bought a seed mix with peanuts and the birds here don't eat them, so I've been scattering the peanuts in the snow when I refill the cardinal feeder (next batch of seeds is only black oil sunflower, millet, and cracked corn). They've been crawling under the store, and jumping from bootprint to bootprint, and when one finds a motherlode, he'll chase the other squirrels away...but while A is chasing B, C will move in and start digging around. Hours of entertainment you can't buy in stores.



I haven't been keeping good track of which birds I've been seeing, but off-hand: three different kinds of finches, juncos in the winter, titmice, woodpeckers, blue jays, and of course cardinals.



Also have a few starlings, who will move in and empty the suet feeder in an hour. Attention people from NYC who get all butthurt that the hix from the stix don't all admire you 24/7: Start with the fucking starlings.

Caturday

"What's a vacuum? Don't tell me; I don't care."

Beer I Am Drinking

Herrmannsdorfer Schweinsbräu Weisse

This was a random purchase at a random Hy-Vee in Davenport: It is impossible to pass by a beer with a photo of a pig wearing pearls on the label and not pick it up. The words "Bavarian Hefeweizen" ensured it came home with me. It was a darker color than I expected, but very tasty with hints of carmel not found in most hefeweizens I can buy in the U.S. I enjoyed it, and at the end of the glass wished for a second. Alas, I only bought one bottle.

I have decided beer is the best way to learn German geography, so I looked up the brewer; Glonn is not too far from Freising. There is a Käserei und Handgemachte Würste. ♪♫These are a few of my fav-or-ite things...♪♫

...and after six or seven years of drinking wheat beers, I finally wondered how they are able to claim they comply with the Reinheitsgebot, since wheat is not barley, hops, or water. The answer: Bavaria had their own beer purity laws that included wheat when they joined the German Empire in 1871, and were allowed to keep them until 1918, when the law for the whole country was modified. In 1987, German beer laws were changed again to allow the importation of Bud Light. It's a sick, sad world.

Wordless Wednesday

Beer and Cat

Not my cat...and I was going to say "not my beer" but I've swilled this one at baseball games.

 Don't judge me!