Rayen

You Are My Spring is one of those k-dramas that charmed yet puzzled me. Part of its undeniable attraction was diminished by what I perceived as dueling conflicts and the confusion that they created with presenting the crimes of the past that affected all of the main characters. The basic story concerns four people whose lives are intertwined from the tragedies in their childhood: Kang Da-jeong (Seo Hyun-jin), a hotel concierge who moves to a rooftop apartment in the opening, and meets Joo Young-do (Kim Dong-wook) a psychiatrist whose clinic occupies the floor below her place. Both of them seem like people who want to help others, and yet they clash almost from the very beginning. Chae Joon (Yoon Park), a stalkerish man pursuing Da-jeong, seems to be a former patient of Young-do's as well as a psycopath, so I pegged him as the antagonist until he abruptly leaves the story. Them his identical twin from the U.S., Dr. Ian Chase (also played by Yoon Park) shows up and acts ev...

Over the past few days I've been turning these orphanned blocks into quilted and embroidered pieces, which I will make into gift bags for the upcoming birthdays and holidays. They're from an estate sale lot I purchased a while back, and it always gives me a good feeling to use something unfinished by another quilter. I decided to get a little ambitious and try cloning the applique work on the largest block to fill in the two unfinished squares. Please note: I don't do applique work at all. My experience is needle-turning exactly one tiny heart on my last linen quilt. That's it. Anyway, I was pretty proud of how well I did making the little Dresden plate pieces, and appliquing them in place. I quilted and embroidered the block as well, and then got my camera to take this picture, at which point I realized one of my appliques (upper right side) had too many points. I was so nervous I actually sewed in the test patch I cut to size the rest. Which is funny, ...

Tomorrow is a television series that has an excellent cast and probably the most heart-wrenching storylines I've ever watched in a k-drama. Because of the latter it took me a while to finish watching the series. Choi Jun-woong (Rowoon) is a young man who keeps trying to land a corporate job but has been unsuccessful. After trying to stop a suicidal man from jumping off a bridge, and falling into a coma, Jun-woong becomes half-spirit and half-human; as his body lay in the hospital on a respirator his spirit lands in Jumadeung, which is a business version of the souls who deal with human afterlife. The Director of Jumadeung offers Jun-woong a bargain: work for her as a Grim Reaper for six months, after which he'll wake up immediately from his coma, or wait three years to wake up naturally. Jun-Woong agrees to work for the Director, and is assigned to the Risk Management Team, run by Koo Ryeon (Kim Hee-sun) and assistant manager Lim Ryung-gu (Yoon Ji-on). Instead of coll...

A few months ago I noticed what I thought was a bug bite on my right arm. As we have a lot of bugs here I get them now and then, usually in the garden, and they always heal with no problem. Only this bite didn't heal but got larger and became like a wound. I then assumed it was a patch of psoraisis, to which I'm also occasionally prone. I am slow to heal, so I did my daily wound care faithfully and tried not to worry. I accidentally tore open the wound twice with only the slightest of bumps, which I admit didn't help. After two months had passed with no improvement I called my dermatologist and asked if she would check it. She was nice enough to fit me in a few days later. When she looked at it she agreed it was worrisome, and did a biopsy. After that all I had to do was wait for the test results, which took a while. The days dragged. I've handled a lot of worrisome health issues at this stage of my life as well, so it's hard not to expect bad news. At...

Last night I won at bobbin chicken for the very first time (finishing a row of machine stitches before your bobbin runs out of thread.) Some machines have a low bobbin alert, but my basic Singer doesn't. I don't have a lot of bobbins, either; only about six for this machine. It helps that I usually only machine sew with black or white thread. For the linen quilt I have about forty skeins of #3 perle cotton thread, plus leftover threads from the last linen quilt I made, which the same color palette. Eight of those skeins came from my vintage embroidery thread haul. I don't know if what I have will be enough thread to finish the quilt. I tend to lean more toward complicated, dense stitches these days, and they require a lot of thread. Obviously if I run out I'll have to obtain more, but I hope I win at embroidery chicken. :)

I need to make some gift bags for the birthdays and holidays that remain in 2022, so while I'm taking a break from the linen quilt I'm going to use some orphan patchwork blocks to build up my bag supply. This bag evolved from a block my vintage textile haul seller sent me as a little thank-you extra. I used scrap white muslin for the back, lining and straps, and embroidered the back side with some vintage perle thread from my thread haul. It's simple, but reusable, which is the whole point. These are the other blocks I'll be using to make more bags. Should be fun. :)

I had some up and down days while working on the linen quilt this week, but I finally made it from one side to the other. I used stencils as guides for some of the stitching on the first three blocks. Stacking rows of cretan stitches on this green patch created the look of chicken wire, which is everywhere here in the country. My stitching is always therapy, but this week I really needed the calm that comes with it. Now that I've made more progress it's fun to look at the back of the quilt, too. This is why I like to put a dark backing fabric on a quilt I'm stitching with light threads. The negative effect is very cool. I'll be taking a break from the project again to work on some smaller pieces and avoid burnout, but I'm actually pretty happy with how it's going.