Watering and Quilting

My laptop is three years old now, and ever since I started using computers in 1999, my desktops and laptops have never lasted much longer than that.  I use the livin’ stuffin’s outa them!  But this time I have an extra-good one, and it’s still going strong, thankfully.  I keep everything well-backed-up, though, just in case.  Sometimes, though, I have too many programs running at once, which slows it down and makes the fan run on high speed.  I solve this by pulling up Task Manager and closing out of unnecessary things that are running behind the scenes.

Now and then I accidentally close down something that, as it turns out, was necessary after all – like the time I shut down Windows Explorer, and was left with nothing but a pretty picture on Desktop – no icons, no toolbar, no Task Manager, no Microsoft programs, no Start menu, no nothin’.

Well, once again, I shut down the wrong thing Tuesday, and when I tried to print something, I discovered what it was:  it was the HP Networks Communicator, or something of that ilk.  Furthermore, in shutting it down, it also cleared out the password to the wireless Router, which is necessary for using this wireless printer/scanner.  And just to add to the general aggravation, we were mostly offline all day Tuesday.  Bah, humbug.  At least my quilting machine just runs off electricity and manpower!

But I soon found the password:  in Control Panel, I clicked Networks, then Wireless Network Connection, and then Wireless Properties.  On the Security tab, there was the password:  ••••••••.  Well, isn’t that helpful.  :-D  Fortunately, there’s a little box next to the words ‘Show characters’.  I clicked it – and there was the password.  I should’ve known it – it’s one we use for various other things.  I have Halfzeimer’s!  (I forget half of everything.  Better than Allzeimer’s, where one forgets ALL of it.  :-D )

I re-entered the password into the printer, and was promptly back in business.

After scanning a few pages I had to fill out for quilt entry at the State Fair, I got back to quilting on Loren’s quilt, periodically going out to change the water.  It was hot out there!

I mailed the pre-entry form to the State Fair in Grand Island.  I have to deliver the quilt to the Quilt Hall at the Pinnacle Bank Expo Center in Grand Island Thursday, August 20.  I’ll pick it up again either Monday, September 7, from 8 – 10 p.m., or Tuesday, September 8, from 8 a.m. – noon.  So if I kick the bucket before then, I hope someone picks up that quilt – or they’ll give it to charity within a month!

If you win at the State Fair, you make a few more pennies than you do when you win at the County Fair – probably even enough to pay for the gas to get there!  See, what I need to do is to publish books, give speeches, teach classes, ...  – and have a better quilting machine.  Then I could get rich and famous.

In order to get rich and famous, one must have money and recognition!  :-D

Early that morning, Larry set out for St. Louis with a trailer big enough to haul three scissor lifts home again.  He got them for the amount he sold his original lift, and will sell one of the new three.  He will keep both a large one and a small one for working on house and garage.  The small one actually fits nicely on the front sidewalk.  The first one didn’t work as well as expected, because it automatically shut off every time it encountered uneven ground – and of course the ground all around our house and garage is extremely uneven.  One could conceivably be puttering along in the thing, lofted high on the platform, and bumble over a bump, causing the thing to shut down and strand one, way up there on the platform.  Better than tipping over and conking one’s noggin on the turf, of course, but highly impractical for getting anything accomplished on this irregular plot of ground.

Thinking Victoria would soon be home for supper that evening, I broiled Angus meatloaf burgers with lots of trimmin’s.  Victoria’s little garden yielded enough tomatoes and onions to go on the burgers, and I put them on oven-toasted onion/sesame-seed buns, with Monterey Jack/Colby cheese, slices of little yellow, orange, and red sweet peppers, dill pickles, and of course a bit of ketchup and mustard.  I sliced the bigger onions, and put a handful of smaller ones into the pan with the burgers to broil.  Yummy!  I had a handful of fresh-picked strawberries for dessert.

And then, wouldn’t you know, I discovered Victoria had already eaten in town.  So I did just what she would’ve done:  I sent her picture of the food, writing, “Here’s the supper you missed out on.” 

It was hot, hot, that day, so I kept water running on our new grass and little trees all day long.

Meanwhile, in Rapid City, South Dakota, they got 4” of snow.  They had to bring out the snowplows an’ ever’thang!  I reckon it soon melted, though – it was 79° there, just two days later.

By midnight, I had part of the first row of half-square blocks on the Cross-Stitched-Block quilt quilted.  I’m trying out several new tools:  Pilot FriXion pens, Crayola fine-line washable markers, and a flexible curve ruler.  Now that I had the design for the half-square blocks figured out, it would go faster.  And hopefully, the blocks with the cross-stitching wouldn’t take too long.  This quilt was supposed to be quick and easy!  Ha.

“Sarah Lynn, do you EVER do anything simple?” asked a friend from a quilting group.  “lol, I think not,” she answered herself.

Well, now and then I try!  I have good intentions.  Things get complicated (sounds like a Statler Brothers song) ‘all by their own selves!’, as Hester used to say when she was wee little. 

I’m going to be really, really glad if all my scribblings come out of this quilt.  I’m used to using the marking pens that vanish with air or water, or quilt pencils that can be erased.  These Crayola markers startle me po’ ol’ sensibilities!  They made such dark marks on the quilt, my hair stood straight up on end.  But... I made sure to get the ‘extremely washable’ kind, and everyone I know who’s used them tells me they come out just fine in the wash.  I certainly hope so!

There are a few old bloodspots on the quilt from when my sister-in-law did the cross-stitching.  I don’t know how long ago it was – but certainly more than two years.  So I’ll use OxyClean ... maybe even Peroxide – but I wonder, is there anything I shouldn’t use, that might not work with the Crayola markers?

I hope the quilt isn’t too big or too heavy for my brother.  I made Loren and Janice a bed quilt several years ago, and, while they loved it, it was really too heavy for them to comfortably use.  I didn’t mean to do it again!  But this time, I used Dream Wool instead of cotton batting, so it is quite a bit lighter.  I’ll tell Loren he can just fold it and lop it over a chair, the couch, or the foot of the bed, if it’s too heavy to sleep under.

Wednesday, July 15th, was our 36th anniversary.  36 years!  We’ve packed a lot of joys and sorrows into that time.  The scissor lifts, I think, are Larry’s anniversary gift.  And I have a new camera.  So we’re both happy.  It was on my 14th birthday that I told my best friend I was going to marry him.  Some said we were too young ...  But ... ♫ ♪ “C’est la vie”, ♪ ♫ say the old folks, ♫ ♪ it goes to show you never can tell! ♫ ♪

The day went like most Wednesdays before it:  Larry worked until shortly before time for church that evening, came skidding in, took a bath and got ready to go, while I went on ahead with Victoria, since I do not like to be late.  He arrived in the middle of the last song before the sermon.  After church, I got everyone’s things returned to them that I borrowed to enter in the fair, except Hester’s big quilt, of course, which I will enter in the State Fair.  We then went home and ate a snack, and Larry started nodding over his plate before he even managed to get to the loveseat for his before-bedtime nap. 

He did wake up long enough to tighten up the wheels on my HQ16; there was way too much play in them, causing the machine to jerk now and then and totally mess up my quilting.  Aarrggh.  It works much better now.

Thursday I went on quilting the Cross-Stitched-Block quilt.  And I went on wondering what security is like for quilts and other items displayed at our State Fair.  As I mentioned last week, the security at the County Fair was seriously lacking.  I went to pick up my quilt when the fair was over, expecting to have to sign something in order to prove identity before picking up the quilt – but there were only three ladies in the exhibit hall, and they were each picking up their own things.  Nobody gave me a second glance as I collected my items and departed.

My hair stood up on end, and I thought, ‘Anyone could have collected these things, and no one would have given them a second glance!’  That quilt took 936 hours to make, and was appraised by a lady at the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln at $9,000.00.  We keep the papers in a safe deposit box.  I know people work at the fair as volunteers... and nothing bad happened – this time.  But, now I understand better why there are websites such as www.lostquilt.com!

I wonder how anyone can possibly enjoy using something they’ve stolen?  They take something that means little to them – but it meant ever so much to the person who made it.

I wrote an email about this issue to the Superintendent of Sewing, Needlework, etc.  She’s a nice lady.  I have no idea if she can do anything about it or not.  But if they can’t offer better security, I will think twice about entering anything again.

Perhaps security was better Sunday night than it was Monday morning – I couldn’t go at that time, because I was at our church service.  Used to be, that was the only time there was for pick-up, but people around town complained, so they added a Monday morning pick-up time also.  Guess they couldn’t recruit enough volunteers to help check things out properly!  I really was surprised and dismayed.  While most of the things had already been collected, there were still many irreplaceable items just sitting there for any ol’ wayfarin’ renegade to shoulder and tote off with.

It had rained Wednesday, so I only needed to water the indoor flowers.  I put a load of clothes in the washer late that morning, and hoped it wouldn’t rain again.  The dryer is still out of commission.  On the fritz.  Inoperable.  Kerflooey.  There was a 20% chance of rain – but this rate increases in increments directly related to whether or not my various activities will be foiled by said precipitation.

I told Larry that from now on I’m going to wash his clothes and then, instead of hanging them on the line, I’m just going to fold them up wet and put them away.  He laughed.  He laughed!!!

My stomach growled – I’d forgotten to eat breakfast!  I rummaged through the cupboards and refrigerator... discovered we were almost out of bread... and threw some flour, etc., into the bread machine before heading back downstairs.  I get it out before the second rising, then bake it in the oven when it’s risen enough.  The bread machine doesn’t bake it nicely enough to suit me.  Edible hockey pucks – even when they smell like fresh bread – don’t suit me.

I called and talked to a lady with the State Fair, and, while she doesn’t work directly with the quilts, she told me they are kept in a locked building.  Well, but... ummm...  Don’t they have to open the building so people can see the quilts?  And don’t they have to open the building so people can pick up their quilts?  Are the quilts dangling loosely from the ceiling, and you just reach up and grab the corner and pull, in order to retrieve them, or what??  Do they bed the baby goats directly underneath them?  I need to know these things!  (No, I didn’t say any of that malarkey out loud.)

The lady, while polite, seemed to think I was just slightly deranged.  Mercy me, all I did was shriek, “Ain’t nobody a-gonna steal me quilt, huh-uh, nosirree, or heads will roll!” and suchlike.  Deranged??  DERANGED????????????

She gave me a phone number for a lady who would know more about it.  After speaking with her that evening, I am somewhat satisfied that it will be safe to enter a quilt in the State Fair.

Friday was another hot day, so I turned on the water before heading downstairs to quilt.  Every couple of hours, I went out and changed it.  I walked on the wrong side of a sprinkler, and my denim skirt was promptly a heavy, sodden thing slapping damply around my ankles.  Not too bad, when you’re outside and it’s 91°, the humidity is 56%, and there’s a heat index of 101°; but a bit unpleasant when you go back downstairs, where the temperature is about 72°.  Changing the water isn’t all that hard, since we have hoses strung around hither and yon, and I only have to flip switches or move sprinklers a few feet.  But I invariably, inadvertently, and unintentionally walk into the spray somewhere.  I got all the porch flowers watered – it takes three goes with a 2-gallon watering can.

I worked on the second row of cross-stitched blocks, following the dotted lines printed on the fabric, so as to better highlight the cross-stitching, as opposed to the quilting, on those particular blocks.

The border, sashing, and the plain outer blocks are taking a long time.  The quilting is fairly intricate, and the quilt is large – 106” x 130” (for an extra-long queen-sized bed).

Victoria and a few friends went to play tennis at the park Friday night; but it was too hot and muggy to get up a very rousing game.

Later that night I was rolling the quilt forward when I suddenly noticed:  the dotted lines I’ve been following in quilting the cross-stitched blocks are forming a second pattern.  I thought the sashing I added ruined that, but it didn’t at all.

The background fill around the little diamonds on the sashing, in particular, is taking a year and a day.  I saw somebody doing something similar on a youtube video, and she just wiggled her machine back and forth lickety-split, and filled in the spots quicker’n you could blink, presto. 

So I tried it:   

!!!

And then I got out my seam ripper and spent 15 minutes removing the clobbered-up mess that had taken me 15 seconds, tops, to make.  I’m now using my little green ruler to force the machine to go exactly where I want it to go, for each and every little line. 

That night, strong storms came rolling through, at least two waves of them.  Hail 3” in diameter hit east of North Platte, and not too far to our west, 70 mph winds were recorded.  The wind got up to about 40 here, and we hastily rescued one of Victoria’s pretty hanging ceramic flowerpots that was swinging madly in the gale ... but we brought in nothing else, because it was raining hard, and the wind was ferocious, and it was too difficult getting in and out of the door while carrying pots of flowers.  I found my pot of hydrangeas tipped over in the morning, but it still looks okay.  Lightning flashed and thunder rolled throughout the night, from about 11:00 p.m. until maybe 5:30 a.m. 

Victoria started cleaning out her fishtank Saturday afternoon after getting home from work.  She’d brought home a swordtail to add to the menagerie.  But she had a headache, and decided to take a quick nap before choir practice, and finish the tank afterwards.  Sooo... she left betta, two tiger barbs, pleco, and the new swordtail (still in its water-filled bag, in order to acclimate to the new water temperature) in the two-quart measuring cup. 

Before she got home, Jeremy and Lydia and the little boys came visiting.  And then Jacob discovered........ the smaller tiger barb had kicked the bucket, and the other was looking none too well.  The poor little barb was hale and hearty, before being stuck into the mixing cup! 

I do believe Victoria is set to discover just how many fish can actually fit into her 2.5-gallon tank, and still have enough water around them to actually swim.

The new red betta is in a one-gallon bowl over on the hope chest.  The 2.5-gallon tank is in the place of honor, kitchen table center.

After Sunday School yesterday morning, Bobby thanked me for the quilt.  He didn’t know what to call it, exactly, since it isn’t made with traditional quilt blocks.  He remarked on how very many little pieces there are in it (I just checked the dimensions, and took one side times the other... and came up with 11,024 pieces.  That may not be exact, but it’s close).

I laughed and told him, “Anything sewn together with a top, insides, and a back is a quilt.” 

Then I told him about the time I was standing at the grocery store magazine rack looking at quilting magazines.  Along came a lady, perhaps in her 60s, pushing an elderly lady in a wheelchair who was very likely in her late 80s.  (The lady, not the wheelchair.)  (The wheelchair was probably not a day past ten years old.)

She stared hard at me.  “Do you quilt?!” she inquired imperially.

I smiled at her.  “Yes,” I answered.

“By hand, or by machine?!” she demanded.

“Machine,” I replied.

“Then it’s not real quilting!!!” she snapped authoritatively.

I grinned... couldn’t keep from it.  “Do you travel?” I queried.  (I knew she did – I had seen them unloading her wheelchair from an out-of-state motorhome in the parking lot.)

“Yes,” she responded in a questioning tone.

“Well,” I told her, “It’s not real traveling, unless you go by horse and buggy.”

The woman pushing the wheelchair burst out laughing.  I smiled, wished them a safe journey, and proceeded on my way.

After church last night, Larry and I splurged on Snickers Blizzards from Dairy Queen, and went for a drive around Wagner Lakes as we ate them.

And now... the porch flowers are watered.  The indoor plants are watered.  One load of clothes is hanging on the line... another is in the washing machine (including Larry’s dress shirt and tie that he spilled his Blizzard on last night).  Water is going on the front and back lawns and gardens.  The kitchen is clean, and the livestock are fed.  A pot of potato soup is simmering on the stove.

Soon I’ll be back to working on the Cross-Stitched-Block quilt.  Loren’s birthday is August 9th.  Gotta hurry, hurry, hurry...

No, I take that back.  I gotta pet Teensy.  He just landed on my lap, and he’s purring, and cuddly, and sweet.  One must take time to pet one’s livestock!

Now Tabby thinks he needs on my lap, too.  Teensy would not appreciate that.  And neither would I.  A cat fight on one’s lap is not a good occupation of said lap.

“Sorry, Teensy, I have to get up.  Time to stir the soup!”  (Literally, not figuratively.)

,,,>^..^<,,,     Sarah Lynn     ,,,>^..^<,,,