and they said:

"...no one likes white backgrounds" when it comes to vintage sheets.

i think i may have found a listing on etsy, that proves this theory wrong:

low volume vintage sheet fq bundle

while i normally go for the brighter, bolder vintage sheets, for some reason, when i came across this listing, i fell in love. instantly. honestly, i *have* to have this bundle, but i just can't justify the cost: $45.00 for 21 vintage fat quarters! before i discovered going to the thrift store, and looking for *whole sheets* on my own, i'd have no problem spending that. but now? my whole outlook has changed. $45? do you know how many whole vintage sheets i can buy for that? but still. i keep finding myself looking for this listing every single day, wanting to know if it was sold or not. i still may just buy it, though, because i love it so much. sigh.

*but*, because i saw this low volume bundle, i've become obsessed with finding something to do with it. and now, i'm obsessed with this:

red pepper quilt's low volume baby quilt

this quilt is their tiffany quilt, modified. i bought the tiffany quilt pattern last year, in hopes of actually starting it - yeah right! - but never did (although i have all the fabric for it. go figure.). i love the look of the original tiffany quilt pattern - but i think i love this version even more so! i *have* to have one, and i think that the low volume vintage sheet bundle will be perfect for this. decisions, decisions...

bikram yoga challenge, days 11-14

day 14, class #11: sunday, april 28
south loop, 11:00 am

despite what i've always thought, earlier is not always better. sigh.

i woke up super early this morning...like 5:00 in the morning early. i was going to try and make it to the 8:00 class, but, by 6:30, i was getting bored and figured that i'd just take a nap for a little bit, and then go to class. wrong! i ended up sleeping for like 3 more hours...and ended up waking up at nearly 10. ugh. after looking at the schedules, i figured that i'd go to the 11:00 class at the south loop location this time, since i haven't been there before.

this studio, while definitely the nicest (and newest) of the three, is a studio for people who live within walking (or el) distance. the biggest turnoff? the $4.00/hour parking. thank you, city of chicago. i spent my entire class thinking, "i've got to skip the final savasana, because i've got to get to the shower before everyone else...before my meter runs out!" very distracting, to say the least.

the class was, well, meh. you know how they're always telling you to "be present" and "listen"...not to just be on autopilot? so what happens when you have an instructor who is on autopilot? i believe that it makes for an only so-so class. but that's just me.

in any case, temperature-wise, today's class was awesome. i think they've done something to keep the temperature somewhat regulated at this studio, which is nice. i tried my new kulae towel today, and found that i really prefer my manduka equa hot towels...they don't get as soggy.

i'm still 3 classes short of being 14 classes/14 days, but, i'm working on it. i've got to get caught up in the next few days!

---

day 13, class #10: saturday, april 27
lincoln park, 4:30 pm

i've really got to get my butt in gear and get serious.

i had all intention to go to the 12:00 class today, but was soo hungry. so i made lunch and ate instead. *huge* mistake, because i end up putting myself like 4 hours behind, and end up driving to lincoln park in the middle of the it's-the-nicest-day-it's-been-so-far-and-every-single-person-is-out mess. getting to the studio was awful, to put it lightly.

i was super distracted during class today, as well. i think it started when i opened the door and got that yes-this-is-a-bikram-yoga-studio smell inmyface. it was seriously overwhelming today. that, coupled with these two girls in back of me, one of which kept on flapping her arms during the beginning of the class really got me distracted.

i was completely unfocused today. better luck next time.

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day 12, class #9: friday, april 26
wicker park, 6:00 pm

i've really got to start blogging right after i take class. because i seriously cannot remember anything from this particular day...other than i had to wait for this d@#%*(ck, with no regard to other drivers on the road, woman to not even pull over, stop in the middle of the street to drop someone off. i couldn't even pull around them. but, the worst part of it was, that before they even got out of the car, they had to have a conversation, kiss each other goodbye, and then, the girl, who was sitting in the back seat had to get out and then sit in the front seat. *you have got to be kidding me*. ugh.

---

day 11, class #8: thursday, april 25
wicker park, 12:00 pm

apparently i actually made it to the 12:00 class, despite having to work the night before, and having a pretty busy shift, complete with two admissions.

today was the day that i felt that i could actually see some progress. my shoulders - even before, when i used to practice somewhat regularly - would never open up, and would just be painful. but, i can tell they're actually starting to open up now.

now, if they'd just slim down a little...but that's a different story. bah!

bikram yoga challenge, days 6-10

saturday, april 20

day #6: FAIL.

my excuses today: i was at the do it your own damn self craft show today, and had to work at 7 pm...until they called me, at 6 pm, that i was cancelled. go figure. could've made it to the 6:30 pm class but ugh...scheduling at my work sucks!

sunday, april 21

day #7: FAIL.

i was so exhausted by the time i got off of work this morning, i had to go home and crawl into bed.

i woke up around 2 in the afternoon, and could have probably made it to the 2:30 class, but, i was just so doggone lazy.

goal: do better!

monday, april 22
day #8, class #5
wicker park, 8 pm

i haven't been to a bikram class that was *this packed* since i was in new york for a week.

i have no idea how many people were in attendance, but there were a ton. of course, i arrived justbeforeclasstarted and ended up squeezing in right next to the wall...and the thermostat. very disturbing, that thermostat. i kept checking it...hottest it registered was 107 degrees, but, it was a pleasant 107. ha!

tuesday, april 23
day #9, class #6
wicker park, 12 pm

what a difference a day makes. i think there were like 10 people in this afternoon's class. today's fail: dandayamana janushirasana - standing head to knee. i've got some massive lower back pain trying to reach my foot in this pose! keep working on it...

wednesday, april 24
day #10, class #7
wicker park, 10 am

so today's 1/3 into the challenge, and, i am 3 classes short. i hope to get back on schedule by this weekend, since i'll be off!

my tuladandasana - balancing stick pose - was very strong today, bilaterally. finally! i'm also making progress with supta vajrasana - fixed firm...at least my butt is able to touch the floor now, without my knees protesting in sheer pain!

gotta work tonight and tomorrow night, but i am hoping that i will have enough energy after work tomorrow morning to make it to class...we'll see...

bikram yoga challenge: days 3-5

day 3: FAIL.

i was on my way to the yoga studio after work, but i was so tired that i was falling asleep...not good! :(

went home and slept instead!

and, i found the most hilarious bikram yoga article today...

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day 4, class #3:

lincoln park, 8:15 pm

arrgh. i thought that there was a 5:30 pm class...but i guess they only have it mondays-wednesdays!

i was going to attend the 6:30 class, but had a bit of time to kill, so i went to the neighborhood wal-mart a block away, and followed that with t.j. maxx and bed bath & beyond. not a good idea.

man. i didn't stop until it was time to go to the 8:15 class...ha!

i was so hungry since i hadn't slept all day...so i had a handful of trail mix about 45 minutes prior to class. big mistake. HUGE. within the first breathing exercise, i was ready to stop...i felt nauseated and just sick to my stomach. but i pushed through, and made it through the whole class, but man...that handful of trail mix felt like i had just eaten thanksgiving dinner.

note to self: avoid even small, tiny snacks before class...stick to the no-eating-for-at-least-3-hours-prior-to-class guideline.

---

day 5, class #4:

wicker park, 12:00 pm

a brief summary of my morning:

alarm goes off at 5:20 am, with the intention of going to the 6:00 class. alarm reset.

alarm goes off at 9:20, with the intention of going to the 10:00 class. alarm reset.

finally wake up without an alarm at 10:50, and make it to the 12:00 class.

it was really hot and really sweaty.

my lower back really, really hurt today for some reason.

other than that, very good class today though.

i'm getting scared because i'm already behind a class, and i definitely will not be able to make class tomorrow because of the do it your own damn self craft supply show that i'll be participating in tomorrow...eek. we'll see.

bikram yoga challenge, day 2

wicker park, 10:00 am (why don't they have an earlier class at this location?)

my butt hurts.

despite my *super crappy* sleep last night and being super achy, i was actually looking forward to and motivated to attend class this morning.

it was hot 'n sweaty, just how i like it! ha!

i guess i'm going to get a little card that gets star-stickered every time i go. how fun is that?

the real challenge will be tomorrow, since i'm working back-to-back 12's starting tonight.

but we'll see...

so it's been a while.

okay...maybe more than a while.

but i've been busy, i swear!

anyways. we're going to start this off (again) right. first things first. we'll get to the crafty stuff soon, i promise.

i am going to participate in a 30-day bikram yoga challenge.

i'm serious. i even started tonight.

i mean, i'm so serious that i even skipped going to the thrift store to go to class tonight. and it's 50% off day. you'll hear all about this later.

we'll see how long this lasts. it's perfect timing, though.

so here we go...

bikram yoga challenge, day 1:

wicker park studio, 8 pm

call me crazy, but, i thought that tonight's class was easy. maybe it's only because i've been to class like 4 times in over a year (and those 4 times have all happened within the past two weeks), but, it was easy. the room was swampy - yes, swampy - but, it wasn't particularly hot. the teacher kept on turning on the blower to bring in cool air, but, i found it to be distracting...probably more so because it was blowing on me! (and the other people in the back row.)

as it has been, supta vajrasana, fixed firm pose, has been impossible for me to even attempt. we'll see what happens.

day 1: success.

wish me luck! :)

proceed with caution: RANT following!

i know i haven't blogged in a while - but, i just *had* to today after reading about the 13-month old twins who died late last week. and no, it wasn't an accident.



initially, there was a blurb about it during the friday daytime news - and, as i had suspected to df, said there wasn't something right about that. they had the police on, the alderman on - all saying that they 'were going to get to the bottom of all of this' - and all the while i'm thinking, "13 month old babies just don't die all of a sudden...and especially *both* of them at the same time..."

so i'm leaving home from work friday evening, and on the radio, they said that the reasons the babies died were because of environmental exposure as well as failure to thrive related to maternal neglect.

i knew something had to be up!

so in today's tribune, there was a story about it. it had mentioned that, although the girls' room had an air conditioner, it wasn't turned on. the only window to the room was blocked by towels. the bedroom was extremely hot & had no ventilation. living conditions were described as being "deplorable" - lttered wth dog feces, urine & dirty diapers.

i the sun time's article. they were 13 months old, yet they were only 13 lbs. each. the mother attributed their small size to the fact that she has another recently born baby who was premature.

she put the babies down for a nap at 10:00 in the morning, but apparently didn't think to check on them until the evening - and that's when she found them dead. you have got to be kidding me.

but the biggest, most slap-in-the-face statement of them all, by the baby daddy's mother:



i'm not going to discount the fact that she has been through a lot. i'm sure she has. she's only 22, and she already has five children. i cannot even imagine having one child now, and i'm almost 10 years older than her. *however*, what i don't like about this statement is, is that 'everybody makes mistakes' line...

a mistake?!? how can you possibly say that this is a mistake?!? i locked my babies up in an upstairs bedroom with no ventilation or air conditioning, and then, on top of that, left them there *all day long* - with not even a thought to check on them, change their diapers, or even FEED them?

a mistake to me would be something like, "oops! i let them play with nontoxic markers, and they drew all over the wall." or something like, "oops! i forgot their binkies at home." what's her excuse? "oops! i thought they were just taking an extra-long nap...that lasted all day." doesn't sound like an "oops!" kind of situation to me.

so i guess both of the families are fighting now, and each side is blaming each other. what i want to know is, is where were these people when she needed them around? there was an aunt or cousin that was interviewed on friday morning - and she had said that she had just been at the house & had just seen the babies that morning. but, apparently, she left, you know, after stepping over the piles of dog crap, urine & dirty diapers. how do you just leave a place like that, and don't think anything of it? or even to offer a helping hand? because obviously something is going on. now it's too late. coulda, woulda, shoulda. a day late, a dollar short.

as i mentioned previously, i don't have children. and no, i don't know how it is to have to deal with them along with all of the rest of life's complexities. no, i don't know how it feels to be overwhelmed with twins, let alone twins, another newly born premature baby in the hospital, and then, i have two more kids on top of that. i have no freaking clue. however, what i do know is, is that children have basic needs, and, this woman wasn't didn't even have the presence of mind to even *check* on her babies. for hours. i keep on getting questions during my review that ask which scenario would be considered negligent. i think this one would qualify, without a doubt.

but this is just my opinion...sigh.

sigh.

last night, i started to descale the coffeemaker. i ran 48 ounces of vinegar through it, and the instructions said to let it sit for at least 4 hours. ok. it was night time, so perfect.

i purposely left the *open* instruction manual in front of the machine, with a large coffee mug still underneath the dispensing spout, and, i get a soft "what am i supposed to do with the coffeemaker?" this morning.

wah. wah. cry. crankiness. why?

because, dear fiance, all you have to do is look at the manual. and follow the instructions. the brewer was all set to go to start the "rinse".

despite the fact that it was 7:00 in the morning *on my day off*, i got up. and rinsed the brewer.

as i am rinsing, he starts puting little pieces of tape on the metal parts that separate the windows. then turns and asks me where it was leaking because we are supposed to put tape on the places the windows were leaking. i snatch the tape out of his hand, and start mumbling something about how "the guy knows where the windows are leaking" and how he "already saw this and could have done this while he was here, examining the windows". i angrily pat little pieces of tape on the metal. then, as he is showering, i look at the paper that came with the roll of painter's tape.

there are instructions.

"first mark the area making a large 14x14 or 16x16 square outline to mark the window where the water comes in. next make a couple of arrows with the tape pointing to the exact location of the leak. this course of action will help the person who will be repearing the window(s) from the outside of your unit locate the are to be repaired."

i angrily snatch all the little pieces of tape that i just patted on, off. and then, i proceed to follow the directions that i wasn't made aware of and tape off the windows. they're big squares, it's kinda scary. i'm on my little ikea stepstool. i can barely reach. expletive. more expletives. but it gets done, and looks something like this:



and this:



and this:



after all this, i really hope that there will be *no question* as to where the "areas" are located. i thought about posting a note on the window as well, but, i think they will get the point. i hope.

anyways. as for fun & crafty things, i made blocks for my very first yellow brick road quilt. i have to say, it's a pretty fast quilt, but, since there are only 6 fat quarters, and each of them are used on a pretty large scale, it's kinda hard not to bump up like fabrics next to each other. or close to each other. once i get the blocks all laid & figured out, i will take a picture of it, since i've been taking pictures of everything else, just not my quilting! :) i used this quilt kit that i purchased off of ebay a while ago - it looks kinda cool and retro-like, but there's just not enough variation, in my opinion, to keep the colors separated.

lastly, before i go for today, i just have to show off my growing collection of apothecary jars:



i'm going to use them during my still unplanned wedding reception (still unplanned because i still haven't set a date yet), for a "candy bar". i can't wait. so excited! i stop at every single t.j. maxx/marshalls/homegoods that i come across to see if they have these things...i'm obsessed! (but the end result will be so worth it!)

aww...there's that smile. finally.

ok! have to get going. i'm going to once upon a child in naperville this morning with one of my coworkers, because i am the queen of sorting through racks of tiny baby clothing. fun, fun! oh! gotta run. she will be here in 24 minutes! until next time!

i am not - *not* allowed to go fabric shopping anymore! at least not for a while. :)



i've been sewing and sewing these blooming lotus nine patches for what...a month now? while i was sewing the last set of nine patches (fabrics #7 & #8), i decided that i just wouldn't be satisfied unless this was a *really* useable quilt. in my mind, useable = queen sized. i just wasn't satisfied with the size it was going to come out, a topper-sized 72"x82". so, with that in mind, i took the el to quiltology last friday. i don't make it a habit to stop there, because i usually can't afford to. :) but, being the only fabric store around here that sells designer quilting fabrics, i had no choice. and i'm glad i went.

my quilt starts out with a light blue center that goes into peaches & pinks, then greens, then greys. i really didn't know what i was going to do with it. i thought that maybe denyse schmidt's hope valley greys would work, but, you just don't know until you bring in samples to the shop & match them up, you know? so after looking at about a dozen or so fabrics or so, these ones ended up being the best to continue the grey & getting darker:



and they also ended up being my original idea of denyse schmidt's hope valley. who would've thought?

of course, i had to go there on a friday, which means it's fat quarter friday. all fat quarters are $2.50. i was able to restrain myself and only pick up a few (although i most definitely could have purchased more!):


i especially love the one on the bottom left-hand corner. it's a reprint of an old liberty of london print. (how long will it be before i purchase that fat quarter bundle?!? no! i need to restrain myself.)

and this:


art gallery's naturella.

so these were just a very small portion of my fabric binge over the weekend. i followed this up with a trip to joann's to use my 50% off coupons, then a second trip to another joann's on saturday morning (where i purchased the nicest "children of the world" print (i still need to take photos), and then, today, just now, i bought a relatively large assortment of fabrics from hawthorne threads, which included fat quarter bundles of all three colorways of joel dewberry's modern meadow line. (can't wait to take photos of all of this!) do you see why i have to stop now?

but i have one last fabric purchase to make: amy butler's lotus lacework in grey. this was my #8 fabric in my blooming lotus quilt, and, since i'm making it bigger, i need to purchase more fabric. i cannot find this anywhere, as it's discontinued. i e-mailed sellers on etsy to see if they had any, i even e-mailed people who had made things with it to see if they had any extra that i could purhcase. after all these e-mails, only one person said they had some that they would be willing to sell, and, i think they've now backed out of it because they didn't respond to my follow-up e-mail reply or my follow-up to my follow-up. sigh. at least have the courtesy to say, 'hey, i've changed my mind, i'm not interested in selling it anymore' rather than just ignoring me! at least then i could just be really upset rather than upset & mad! but...there was one more lead that i received from amy butler's fabric sales team (yes, i even e-mailed them too!)... they had referred me to quilthome.com, stating that they had purchased a lot of overstock of amy's old lines. so i called them up, and, lo and behold - they didn't have actual yardage of this lacework in grey, but, they had remnants, strips of fabrics, ranging from like 7-13" wide. *perrrrrfect*, considering that the strips i need to cut are only 4 1/4" wide. i'm going to buy a bunch of these remnants since they are from different dye lots, and may be really off from each other & from the fabric i already have, so, hopefully everything will work out! i've chosen the "remnants" that i would like and am calling to place my order tomorrow morning, first thing! the lady that answered the phone when i called was so nice & helpful. i love quilt home too! :) (now i know why they have those little 'i love quilt home' badges on their website!)

one last thing before i go:



my fresh & funky july quilt block. (one of them, at least.)

the theme of these july blocks are "people & places", so, we were encouraged to add our own little personal touches (ie. make a block of your house). mine is kinda high rise-ish (i tried!), and then i put two cats in the windows that represent my two cats (even though they don't really look like them). and then, what i think is my most clever personalization of the block: the amy butler lotus lacework in grey (i know! this was before i decided that i was going to make my quilt bigger!) sidewalk & concrete, because we don't have much green space here in the south loop. but doesn't it just coordinate beautifully with the rest of the block? love it!

i have another personalization idea for my "person" block...but will reveal that when i sew it up & post it! :)

well, with that, i'm off. heading out to the suburbs tomorrow to have a late father's day lunch with my dad (since i had to work on sunday) - gotta rest up to make the trek out there! :)