Hooray updates! Yesterday afternoon, on the way home, I asked myself the question that often -- OFTEN -- leads to trouble:  "Okay, so I've cleared lots of the little projects out of the way. What big beast can I tackle tonight?"

I thought about Miss Pretty Primrose, and scratched my head. Hmm. Well, my objection has been that I'd never attempted to do a full-sized quilt on my machine at home, but I had such a horrid experience at the rented longarm quilt machine last time that maybe I should just tackle it.

The sign of doom is when I shift from saying "Oh I should do that sometime" to "Here's how I'd start." When I start laying concrete plans, it's over, buddy.

It's Monday. You need a little lunchtime music love. You know you do. The Avett Brothers are just fun, fun, fun. (If you're unfamiliar with the Avett Brothers, picture a trio-sometimes-quartet of punkers playing bluegrass-influenced rock.)

These aren't the most slickly produced videos on YouTube, but they're a pretty good idea of what the live show must be like.

The sound quality of the second video isn't that great (lots of noise) but catch it about three minutes in to see Joe Kwon shred his cello bow over the course of a single song. The third video is the same song with better audio quality, but it's not quite the all-out stompfest of the version in the second video clip.

I haven't talked much about the ideas for Sailor's Warning because I'd not sewed even a test square together. It was little but an ephemeral, wacky idea, and there was no point doing much about it until I had my materials under control.

['Yes, an upholstery factory exploded here']

Some time ago, Danielle pinged me to ask if I wanted some of the upholstery and drapery sample books she'd gotten her hands on. I thought about my grandmother and said yes without hesitation; my grandmother, many many years ago, worked for an upholstery fabric company, and many of the quilts she made for her kids and grandkids came from the mill ends and scraps from her workplace.

What if you just -- stopped?

A little while back I referenced the idea of a media blackout. I didn't say that I quietly put the blackout in place as of that post, and have consciously avoided the hamster wheel of news since then. Unsurprisingly, I'm happier. I pick up tidbits from friends on facebook and twitter, but by and large, the world is passing me by for a while.

Jeff and I are considering taking another, more blasphemous step. We bought a media device that lets us play video files on our house server, as well as Netflix Instant streaming, youtube, and another couple of sites. We're getting ready to do a media overhaul in our living room (our TV is a decade old) and he asked a question that I'd thought about before but never seriously voiced:

"What if we cancel our satellite subscription?"

I changed up the quilts page a bit recently to give some better insight to what's going on in my head over here. Drupal lets me be flexible with my content types, and some time ago I set up a content type for my quilts. If you look at http://domesticat.net/quilts you'll see my current works-in-progress are roughly ordered by state of completion. I thought I'd explain the terms; I get the impression sometimes that my friends think this process is really inscrutable, when it's not.

Designing and researching.

It's in my head. There's a fine line between "I have an idea" and "Designing and researching." D&R implies a level of commitment.

A couple of weeks ago, when I asked Catherine E. what kind of quilt she was interested in, she told me she loved the look of Dresden Plate quilts from the 1930s. I started researching it, and discovered something I really should have predicted, but had not: many things on places like eBay turn up from estate sales, and quilt pieces are part of estate sales. I've been staring in fascination ever since.

What I realized: if you're looking for the right type of item, it is possible to pick up actual antique unfinished quilt pieces for less money than it would cost to pick up the same amount of reproduction fabric representing the same period, and make the pieces yourself.

Discretion is required, obviously. I've seen some real nightmares up for sale:

(I should note that there's a question coming at the end)

Short version?

['SSHHHH SECRET', user rcanine on flickr]

There. Two quilts out in two days. No, I didn't complete them, start-to-finish, in two days, but they're leaving my house within 48 hours of each other -- and yes, Tenzing is royally displeased. How did you know? Oh, previous photos. Right.

So here's the wrap-up on two quilts:

['Get thee hence!']

Crayon Box heads to South Carolina, to live with Scott Johnson. He had a good bit of input into its final construction; he chose the size as well as the backing/binding, a very dark, foresty green color. It goes in the mail this afternoon, so I feel pretty justified in calling it "completed" on the quilts page.

An odd realization: this blog, as of today, is ten years old. I'm not sure I ever expected it to hit this mark, given that I've been pretty quiet the past couple of years, but it seems to be finding its footing again as a place I can show photos of what quilts I've been working on.

Much has changed in ten years. It's chronicled my shift from early 20s to early 30s. Births, deaths, and everything in between. Somewhere along the way my cats went from peppy youngsters to opinionated middle-aged brats. I'm totally okay with that. After all, Tenzing and I have learned to compromise.

['Compromise is the key to not killing your cat']

I present the following to you without explanation or context. It needs neither.