Picture Update!

I have accomplished alot of things in the past month/month and a half. These pictures are in no particular order, because that just takes too much time on blogger, but at least I got them up and know how to upload pictures to blogger from a mac! Apparently the larger the picture file, the more trouble it is up upload. Logical, right? Totally didn't think of that before. So that's why some people have no problem uploading from a mac to blogger and others (like me) have so much trouble! So anyway, here are some pictures for everyone's enjoyment...

______________________________

I decided I needed a change as far as my hair goes. I decided this at 11pm on night. I thought bangs would be the way to go. I decided I would get out the scissors first thing in the morning. So I got out the scissors first thing in the morning and started cutting. It only took about 5 minutes. That is not enough time to thoroughly think through what you are about to do. I believe my first word when I looked in the mirror was either "Oops" or "Shoot". It's grown on me though (no pun intended) and now I'm kinda enjoying the new look. And don't worry, it's been trimmed up a bit since that picture was taken, and it is much straighter now. : )

______________________________

I finished sewing my quilt together shortly into my internet fast. It was so much fun that I wanted the project to last and yet I couldn't get myself to leave it alone. Once I finished cutting all the squares (hundreds), I figured out a pattern on graph paper for how I wanted the quilt to look. Then, I had to put all the squares together into "sandwiches" and then lay them in rows in the pattern I wanted. I sewed the squares into rows. Then I lay the rows together and started sewing rows together. I had almost finished sewing all the rows together when my sewing machine needle broke. I had to run out and buy more needles and not even three stitches into a new needle and it broke too. Luckily sewing machine needles come in packs of 5, so I could go right on sewing.

I am using my mom's old sewing machine, the machine I learned to sew on when I was about 14 or so.

Sidenote from the quilt project. At the beginning of the year I found an old journal in a pile of books that were being given away here at the school. It was terribly ugly, covered with floral fabric. I grabbed it though because I love to journal and figured it wouldn't be hard to recover. I ended up sewing together strips of ribbon to make a cover and then slipped the cover over the old fabric. Voila! New journal for 2010!

Back to quilting...this (above) is a picture of my rows of squares sewn together and waiting to be attached to each other.

I was most worried about my corners lining up when I started to sew the rows of squares together, but I'd say I did a pretty good job. There are a few places where they don't line up exactly, but when you look at the quilt as a whole, you can't even tell! Whoo-hoo! Point for Niki.

This is the finished quilt...you can kinda see what the other side of the quilt looks like. Eventually it will all look beautifully and cozily frayed, instead of just like open seams.

And this is the step I am stuck on. If you look closely at the seam, you can see that there are small cuts made into the fabric. This is to help the seams fray well when I wash the quilt. What I'm working on now is cutting little notches into each of the seams...talk about time consuming. At this point I just want the quilt to be done!

______________________________

On Thursday was Thanksgiving for the American population of the world. And this year that included us. We had a wonderful potluck, turkey dinner style. I got the job of cooking the turkey (which was actually two smaller chickens). I was the only one who had ever cooked that before, so, unbeknown to my fellow court-dwellers, I actually got the easiest job of them all. Buy bird. Take bird out of bag. Put bird into roaster. Pour lots of yummy butter over bird. Put bird in pre-heated oven. Take out in a few hours. Done.

But anyway, what does that have to do with a picture of my husband on a motorbike? Well, this was his highlight of Thanksgiving day. He got to learn to ride motorbike. Our friend, M, was gracious enough to lend "Charis" to Nathan so that he could learn to ride. He also gave him some instruction, which was probably more for the safety of his brand new bike, than for Nathan. hehe. Nah, M is quite willing to teach Nathan to ride.

______________________________

For anyone who knows American traditions, Black Friday is a big one. It is America's biggest shopping day. You know how Canadians go out on Boxing Day because all the stores have huge sales? Well, there is no Boxing Day down here. Instead they have Black Friday. It is the day, legend has it, when all the stores, after being financially in the "red" all year, finally get back into the "black" or positive again. This is a picture of the 6 of us who partook in the Black Friday tradition. And yes, we are all Canadian. The American's were smart enough not to join us.

Here we are all smiling and happy at midnight shortly after arriving in line outside Target (above).

Nathan looks quite thrilled to be waiting in line. Heidi on the other hand is reveling in the experience. This is at about 4:30am, half an hour before the doors opened.

Our "I'm-so-excited-to-have-pulled-an-all-nighter-so-that-we-can-be-standing-outside-in-the-cold-at-4:30am-for-a-chance-at-a-tv" faces. And yes, it was cold. California does get down to 3 degrees at night.

Our Target line was much more relaxed than the Best Buy line just down the parking lot. We sat and played cards and talked for 4 hours before the line started compressing. The Best Buy line was pushing and shoving and standing the entire night. Our line was actually pretty fun. And I didn't get tired at all. Must have been all the nice, fresh, cool air. Well, maybe not "fresh"...the central valley has ALOT of smog. It's pretty disgusting, actually.

In the end, we did get our tv, as I mentioned in yesterday's post. It was a fun experience...one that I don't feel the need to ever repeat though...