Happy Halloween - scariness and vampire lovin!

hi guys!

i was all set to post about FVMQG's awesome halloween party today, but i had a bit of a scare of my own....


if you know me in person, you might know that i LOVE books (Holly's definitely commented on my need to acquire new quilting books as soon as they come out!). my mom's a writer (remember, she has a blog?), and i grew up with tons of books, and as much as i support the idea of public libraries, i want them for my own!! so i own a lot of books.

and what's the scariest thing for a booklover?

that's right, WATER. urgh!


now that my toothache has abated, i didn't keep waking myself up by rolling over on it, and i slept in today, catching up from the past few days. this afternoon i was sitting on the couch (playing Dr Mario, if you must know) and i kept hearing this sound... drop, drop... my roof was leaking!! and it was leaking directly onto a big box full of sewing and quilting books and patterns. (which were in a box because they wouldn't fit on the shelves, which obviously means that i need to clear out my books....) did i mention that i live on the first floor? why was MY roof leaking?

i jumped into high gear and started moving everything to the closest clear surface - which was my sewing tables, of course! (so much for sewing today) i put down towels, because it wasn't dripping A LOT, just enough to ruin stuff, and started phoning around, hoping that this would be handled faster than last year's plumbing fiasco (which still isn't fully repaired, FYI). strata dudes came right away, investigated a few things, and it turned out that the roofers who'd been here for ages hadn't done a proper job of sealing off the fireplaces, and it had been leaking for DAYS, and had finally worked it's way down to me. the guy on the 3rd floor (yes, the same guy who flooded my kitchen on purpose last year) has been hearing the dripping for 4 or 5 days, but hadn't bothered to tell anyone.

the people on the 2nd floor are out of town, so who knows how much damage they have, but for now, the roof has apparently been resealed. somehow, in the rain... but i'm not asking questions. once everything's dried out, they'll paint over the 5 foot stain on my ceiling, and i assume they'll deal with the fact that it's starting to buckle a bit. and i'll be sending them a bill for the stack of ruined books and magazines, along with at least 18 or 20 Sublime Stitching patterns (which at $5 a pop, aren't cheap!). but i can't bill them for the energy or anxiety, or the flareup i'm sure i'll have tomorrow from moving a bunch of heavy stuff! i happened to have a plastic wrapped pack of cardstock in the pile, which i think protected the books below them, so i was lucky.


since i no longer have times to edit a whole bunch of pictures and write up my planned post, i thought i'd show you a paperpieced mugrug that i made ages and ages ago, but never got around to posting (surprise!). it's a bit of a reward to reading all of my babbling!




i used a paperpiecing pattern available here, and it took me FOREVER! this was also my first real paperpiecing project.... i might have been overly confident!!

i wanted to make a rectangular mugrug, so i decided to add a row of hearts along the side. i was thinking of the huge trend of vampire romance novels, not the least of which was the Twilight craze! i learned a lot making it, such as - make sure there isn't an error in the pattern before you get to the very end (right inside the lips, in the middle. oops!), seam allowance is important when sewing paperpieced blocks together (i lost a few points on the hearts!), and i probably should have photographed it BEFORE i washed it! (i swear it was straight sided when i finished it)



you can tell i made it awhile ago, since i didn't quilt the crap out of it!

what do you think? i took it to the FVMQG meeting, and i don't think it was most people's style!




(also, i wanted to note - i fully see the ridiculousness of me freaking out about the ceiling leak when thousands of people are homeless or worse from Hurricane Sandy. i realize that it's super minor in comparison, i do. but it was still pretty upsetting to me! i feel like water is the bane of my existence, there seems to be a flood or leak of some sort every single year...)