Last Monday was the first day of school for our Jr.
and Sr. High students. The elementary
students’ first day is tomorrow.
I
have a cousin named Debra, my father’s oldest brother’s daughter. She’s
the youngest of four – Ronnie, Roger, Patty, and Debbie.
When
she was in first grade, she joined her siblings in riding the bus to
school. She was a wee little dinky thing, cute as a button (still is –
barely tops 5 feet). There was a big ol’ bully who also rode the bus, and
every day he picked on Ronnie, who was in the 6th grade, and not
very big himself.
So...
it was the first day of Debbie riding the bus.
Suddenly Big Moe was bawling and blubbering, blood pouring from his
nose.
“What
happened, what happened?!” demanded the bus driver, peering in his mirror.
“Swiney
hit me!” wailed Moe.
“Ronnie!”
exclaimed the bus driver. ”You apologize to Moe right now!”
“No,”
bawled Big Moe, “wasn’t Ronnie, it was Debbie!”
She’d
hit him smack in the nose with her small fist, and she must’ve wound up from
the shoelaces.
The
driver stared, then choked out, “Well, maybe you got what you had coming,” and
spent the rest of the drive trying hard not to laugh.
Tuesday I posted
the pattern for the borders and sashings for the Buoyant Blossoms wall
hanging. It will be free for one month. The borders for the personal-throw-sized
quilt will be different, so if you are planning to make the larger quilt, don’t
use this pattern: Borders
On one of the quilting groups to which I belong, we
were talking about all the names there are for types of quilting: there’s
stippling... microstippling... pebbling... McTavishing (Karen McTavish started
this design – she called it ‘cartoon hair’, but others started calling it ‘McTavishing’,
and that’s what stuck)... meandering... feathering... rulerwork...
pantographs... cross-hatching... curved cross-hatching...
echo-stitching...
It will be
free for one month.
I’m enjoying
making this quilt – but it sure slows things down and complicates matters,
trying to make patterns others can use. I hope those who make this quilt
– or any of the blocks, for that matter – send me photos.
Wednesday, I
scurried off to town with jumper cables to help Amy, who’d gotten stranded at
the post office with a dead battery in their Ford transit wagon. Amy was
trying to get one of the cables to make a good connection – one of the connecting
posts under her hood had paint on it from when Teddy rebuilt and repainted the
vehicle not too long ago – when a man who’d been working on the road nearby showed
up and offered to help. We pointed out the trouble (or maybe he spotted
it before we told him)... and soon he had the paint scraped off, the cables
hooked back up – and in a minute or two, the van had started. We thanked the man.
“This
isn’t actually in my job description!” I told him, and he laughed.
A lady
wrote to a quilting group in regards to the Lily Appliqué pattern to say, “It
says the pattern has been removed.”
I
checked into the matter. That is, I tried to check into the matter. The only pattern removed from Scribd was last
month’s Dresden plate pattern. Both the wall hanging borders and the lily
are alive and well, and set as ‘Public, Shareable’. The pattern was still there – on my blog, on
Scribd, on Google Drive, on Facebook, on Instagram, on Craftsy, and on Etsy.
The
more I tried to find out the exact when, where, how, and why of the problem,
the more the lady didn’t answer, other than to tell me, “It still says it has
been removed.” I never did learn who
this ‘It’ was. Nasty critter, that ‘It’,
saying my pattern had been removed!
The Lily Appliqué
block had been downloaded 488 times from Scribd, and the Borders instructions
446 times, in less than 24 hours. So
evidently there are those who can get to it.
It’s working on Craftsy, too; several hundred patterns had been
downloaded since early morning. A few
dozen had been downloaded from Google Drive.
I pondered the issue, and then a quilting friend wrote to tell me that
when she was not signed in to those
websites, she, too, could not download the patterns.
Ah. That should’ve occurred to me, since I have
heard from people who were all bent out of shape that they should have to sign
into anything in order to get the pattern. The only other option is for me to personally
email the pattern to them, and I have indeed done that a couple of times when people have
actually paid for a pattern, and then had trouble downloading it for
some unknown reason. But it’s unrealistic to think I could personally
send the free pattern to everyone who wants it – because I’d be doing nothing
else but that, since over 10,000 people want each pattern!
Well, I
have no control over such things, nor can I be sure what’s causing individual
problems; so I can’t worry about it. I’m just glad I have several options
to offer everyone, such as Google Drive, Craftsy, Etsy, etc. Craftsy is
almost always reliable. I’ve put all the links on my quilting blog: Buoyant Blossoms Quilt
I intended to sew after church Wednesday night, but
by the time we got home, my good intentions had faded, along with my, uh, well,
my father would’ve called it ‘spizzerinctum’.
So I retired to my recliner with my laptop for company. Teensy soon came and ensconced himself on my
lap – and then he sneezed on me! Aaauuuggghhh!
I howled, he leaped to the floor, and I commenced to
washing. He sneezed for two or three
days, now and then, and I thought he must have a cold; but he seems to be over
it now.
Thursday, I put the chiffon
sleeves into Robin’s bridesmaid dress.
The fabric is quite sheer, and I meant to double it – but I forgot. So now I have the delightful job of adding
another layer of sleeve to an already-sewn-in sleeve. It’s totally overlocked, the cuff is in it,
and everything. Bother! This will not be a picnic.
Since I don’t have plum-colored serger thread, I
used plum-colored thread only in the loopers; I put black serger thread in the
needles, where it’s hardly noticeable at all. The serger makes such a
pretty seam.
Loren came
to pick up some supper – ancient-grain-encrusted cod, mashed potatoes and
gravy, broccoli, corn, chocolate pudding, and orange jello. I don’t know
if all that goes together – but it sure was colorful! You know what they
say: make your meal colorful, and more likely than not, it will be
healthy. That’s why a nice big bowl of
M&Ms is good for you.
Every time
my brother, who just turned 78, comes out here, he pulls weeds as he comes down
the walk toward the door. His place is neat as a pin, grass bright
green and perfect, trees healthy and thriving, flowers blooming... Well,
my flowers are blooming like anything, too.
You just have to look harder to see them between the weeds, is
all.
I told
him, “Well, the wedding isn’t going to wait; I have to get these dresses
done. The weeds, on the other hand, will be here next year, no
problem!”
He laughed,
“Yes, and winter will help you out with those weeds, too!”
Victoria
got the curtain rods she ordered, and Hester is giving her the pretty curtains
she just took down at her house when she redecorated. Every little
bit helps!
Friday I sewed cuffs, hems, and
side seams. The seams on the candlelighters’
dresses were a little tricky, since lining and satin are joined to the waist,
and then hang separately the rest of the way to the hem. They are princess-style, and there is no seam
at the waist; so I snipped the seam allowance right to the thread at the waist,
and separated lining from outer fabric at that point. (That made good sense; I’m sure it did.)
Since the
hamper was full, it was high time to do the laundry, too. And dishes!
One side of the sink was chockful. Victoria
had filled the crockpot before she headed off to work that morning, and she’d
used every dish in the house, or so it appeared, to make whatever concoction
she’d put in there. I rarely use the
crockpot, because... I don’t like smelling supper, when I want to eat
breakfast. Furthermore, Victoria loves barbecue seasonings. I
don’t. And I particularly dislike smelling barbecue aromas when I’m
trying to eat date, raisin, and walnut oatmeal! Bleah.
You know,
in less than two short months she’ll have to deal with her own stack of
dishes that she made such a colossal mess of.
((...evil sniggle...))
Yep, I’m going
to miss her. But she’ll only be about eight miles away; I’m glad for
that!
A little before 7:00
that evening, I put some mini 12-grain loaves in the oven, as Victoria had requested.
Soon, Kurt, Jared, and Victoria arrived, Victoria, fresh from work. From my sewing room downstairs, I could hear
dishes rattling... Victoria pulling the bread from the oven...
The
kids were kind enough to leave some food in the slow cooker for Larry and me;
Larry wasn’t home from work yet.
Fact
of the Day: Did you know that crockpots are
slow cookers, but not all slow cookers are crockpots? Crockpots have stoneware pots (think
‘crockery’) that sit inside surrounding heating elements. A slow cooker that is not a crockpot is generally a metal pot that sits on a heating
element.
Saturday
morning, I put away a last load of clothes... poured a cup of San Marco Huckleberry
coffee, made from fresh-ground beans... and sat down to eat oatmeal and
read email, news, and funnies. The kitchen
window beside me was open, and gazillions of insects were singing their
autumn-is-coming songs: katydids, tree crickets, black field crickets,
and the occasional granddaddy frog. Now and then a Bewick’s wren scolded
one of the cats.
If you
like these sounds, mixed in with birdsong, and can’t hear them at your house,
here’s a website with such sounds: Music
of Nature. Try the Listening Room.
You can
listen online... or purchase MP3 downloads or CDs, too. If you suffer
from hearing loss, the man who owns the website, Lang Elliot, even sells a birdsong
hearing aid.
Breakfast
done and insects listened to, off I went to the sewing room.
By
Saturday night, the majority of the wedding dresses were complete. Look what a pretty rolled hem my new presser
foot makes:
Since I’d
never put in an invisible zipper before, I decided to first give it a try on a
bag I’m planning to make for Joanna for Christmas, the front and back of which
are unused blocks from the Buoyant Blossoms quilt. I keep hunting around
for the perfect bag to make, using these 8 ½” blocks... but by the time I quit
sewing, sit down in my recliner, and start looking, I can’t hold my eyes open! Maybe because I don’t quit sewing and sit
down in my recliner until the early morning hours?
My brother
goes to bed early... and gets up early. I prefer the other way around
(though I do enjoy watching the sun rise, now and again). I tease
him and say that everybody knows owls are smarter than chickens, any ol’
day.
I dug out
a bunch of invisible zippers in order to give my new invisible zipper foot a
try.
Now...
Hey!
Where’d they go, where’d they go? And
where’s that zipper foot??
Joke. Ha-ha.
(In an Eeyore tone of voice.)
This is
the top of the bag, invisible zipper and all, along with the pansy block that
will make up one of the sides. I found a fancy filigree
brass buckle ♫ ♪ Amongst My ♪ ♫ Souvenirs ♫ ♪ (in a Marty Robbins
tone of voice) to use on the bag, too.
Here’s the
back of Emma’s dress – I tied the bow and let it drape. Maybe it looks
okay this way, and I don’t need to worry about stiffening it?
Last night after church, Lydia, Jonathan, and I
walked out to the Jeep to get something.
It was quite windy, so I said to Jonathan, “Help, help! Hold my hand, so the wind doesn’t blow me
away!” He quickly grabbed my little finger
and held on.
We headed back inside, and Jonathan, clearly wanting
to hold my hand (or finger) again, said, “I hope the rain doesn’t blow you
away!”
So I held out my hand and said, “You’d better hang
onto me, so it doesn’t!” – and he happily latched onto my finger again.
Before going home, Larry and I went to Wal-Mart, mainly
to get the covered buttons for the dresses.
They didn’t have any small enough, but I found some extra-large brass
eyelets (and the tool with which to apply them). Just the ticket for the bag I want to
make. I have a handful (6? 7?) of
brightly-colored invisible zippers; the color of the zippers will determine the
various colors of pockets and inserts I put into the bag.
We gathered a few things I can’t order online from
Wal-Mart, such as cheese, Kozy Shack rice pudding, cottage cheese, Mozzarella
cheese, Colby cheese, bananas, raspberries, and berry smoothie to pour on the
raspberries (drinkable yogurt poured on them is much better, I have now concluded).
Why can’t Wal-Mart sent a refrigerator
truck to my front door??
When we got home, I put my macro lens on my camera and
took shots of a white-lined sphinx moth, a praying mantis, a katydid, a
stinkbug, and several other moths and insects that were in great stages of
busyness around our front porch light. Here’s
a cute(?) little Western bean cutworm moth.
The
crickets and katydids were having a major songfest. I opened the windows,
the better to hear the night insect noises, with the occasional owl or coyote
lending voice to the mix.
Tabby was
nervous, because I’d put the pet-door blocker in, as he kept getting in
bad-word contests with a cute little gray striped cat with white paws.
Tabby is at least 18 ½ years old – but still thinks he’s a young spring
chicken. Upon hearing the fuss out my
window (it didn’t blend with the crickets very well), I went out and got
Tabby. The gray purred around my ankles while Tabby purred in my
arms. Soon after I put the blocker in, Tabby tried to go out – discovered
he couldn’t, and went to pacing back and forth, looking claustrophobic.
The
pet-door blocker was serving a double purpose:
it was keeping Tabby in, whilst
keeping the little gray out. A bit earlier, Tiger was indoors, chowing
down at the food bowl. He’s huge –
and he eats like he’s afraid every meal will be his last. Despite his
size, he generally gives way to Teensy and Tabby, since they have
seniority. He hasn’t been here very long, but he’s obviously made his
claim on us. He has the funniest meow – all low-pitched and growly/ raspy,
like he’s been out in the desert without his water flask.
Well, so
Tiger was scarfing down the Purina, when the gray cat decided to come through
the pet door. (He, too, is plump and healthy – we think he belongs to
some neighbors over on the highway, as he’s obviously well-cared for, happy,
and trusts people.) Anyway, I didn’t hear him come through the pet door –
but Tiger soon alerted me to the fact:
“MMRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!”
he howled, a good octave higher than usual.
So I picked
up the gray, who purred happily, politely escorted him out the door (whereupon
he stopped purring and stared at me reproachfully), and assured Tiger that he
was still third runner-up to the feline throne at Jacksonhaus.
Siggghhhh...
I thought I said I didn’t want more cats?
Isn’t it
funny, how our pets get so accustomed to what we do... know what we’re going to
do... and wait while we do it? Teensy loves to jump on my lap when I sit
down in the recliner for a bit before heading to bed. He hops up between
me and my laptop, then pumps and purrs and butts his head against me. He
always gets a little carried away with his claws in this pumping business, so I
pull up a thick afghan when I see him coming. He stands and watches until
I alllllmost have it in place – and then he leaps, always arriving just a
little too soon, and trying to pump his paws on those places not yet covered
with the afghan. This makes me laugh – and I’m sure that’s why he keeps
right on with the little ritual, night after night without fail. Pets know when they’ve made you laugh,
and act pretty smug about their ability to do so.
I made
myself some jasmine tea, with Truvia sweetener. And you know what??
I don’t like jasmine tea any better than I did the first time I tried
it! Tastes like I brewed Band-Aids.
Perfumed Band-Aids. Victoria likes it – but then, she likes BBQ
chicken potato chips, so what can one expect?
There are four or five bags left; I’m determined to use them up before I
open a new box. A short (very short)
steeping of the tea, two packets of Truvia, and I’ll survive.
Kurt and Victoria went to Omaha today,
shopping for wedding things. They got Kurt’s and his brother Jared’s
suits and shirts at a smashing bargain.
Here they are at iHop, having lunch.
Lydia rode out to our house on her new bicycle this
morning, pulling Jonathan, 2 ½, and Ian, 6 months, behind her in their bike trailer.
Later, Larry brought Jacob, 7, home with
him on his motorcycle for a little while.
He had to have a chance to come to Grandpa
and Grandma’s house, too, you know, since his little brothers had.
A couple of ruby-throated hummingbirds were feuding
over the feeder – and it occurred to me that it had been a week since I filled
it. I brought it in, washed it, put new
nectar in it, and rehung it. Soon the hummingbirds
were back, so I put my long lens on and went outside to see what I could
capture. I took exactly 444 pictures –
and wound up with about 35 good shots and 35 more not-bad-enough-to-discard-of
shots.
We needed to go to the Nebraska State Fair to pick
up my quilt and pillow, and I was looking forward to seeing the other quilts
and crafts exhibits, all the animals, the Games & Parks display, the home
furnishing exhibits, and so forth. But
Larry was still working on his lawn tractor at 4:00. He’d planned to mow, use the weed-eater, and
get the yard looking nice, since, as it was Labor Day, he didn’t have to work. It didn’t get done.
We finally left home some time after 6:00 p.m. By the time we got to the Fair, the Exhibit
Halls were closing and vendors and exhibitors alike were shutting down and hauling
their belongings away. We
got to eat; that was it. We had Samboli (an Italian sandwich stuffed with
cheese and pepperoni), chocolate chip cookies, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and we got
a funnel cake that we ate later, since by the time we finished the first
course, we were as stuffed as the Sambolis. It’s always a disappointment
to eat funnel cakes later, because they are no longer piping hot and crunchy on
the outside. And of course we couldn’t get the fresh fruit topping, because
we had no good way of transporting it.
The
Samboli was
good, for what it was... but if there had’ve been a vendor selling bowls of
fresh sliced fruit nearby (or even fresh sliced vegetables, for that matter), I
wouldn’t have given the Italian food or any fried food a second glance.
And my goodness, the size proportions of the stuff they sell – ! Whew, it’s too, too much. I wish they’d
have ‘tasting booths’ where one could have just a bite of everything. I
like to try food varieties, but I don’t want a sandwich big enough for Paul Bunyan!
Neither quilt nor pillow garnered so
much as an Honorable Mention. ((weeping
copious rivers of tears)) No, actually,
I’m not really disappointed, as I knew the flaws in the items, and I’ve seen
other people’s work, and some make truly spectacular things.
Later, we stopped in the outer perimeters of a state
park to eat the funnel cake. A deer strolled through as we sat
there. We started home, and I set about editing
photos on my laptop.
The Jeep swerved. I looked up fast, to find that we were in the left lane, just heading back to
where we belonged. Larry was pretty sure the wind had blown him
there.
Uh-huh.
I drove the
rest of the way home while Larry slept. I saw a coyote... an opossum... a
mama raccoon with three babies... and a buck with tall, majestic antlers.
That’s what’s fun about driving at night around these parts – there is such an
abundance of wildlife. Fun, that is, so long as you don’t have a direct
meeting of ways.
We got
home a little while ago, about 11:30 p.m. or so. And that’s the end of Labor Day 2016. I didn’t get to see any pretty quilts or
craftwork, but I did have a visit from three sweet little grandsons. I didn’t get to see the animals at the fair,
but I did get a heap of hummingbird photos.
Hmmm... a
flock of hummingbirds is called a ‘charm’, a ‘hover’, or a ‘troubling’. You have only to watch them for a while to
know when to use which description. As
for my collection of hummingbird photos?
Why, we’ll call them ‘a charm of hummer shots’, of course!
Okay, as Aunt Virginia used to say when signing off her
letters, “That’s all I know!”
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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