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Monday, September 25, 2017

Journal: Hurricanes, Arachnids, Oversized Trucks, & Ladybugs

Since my last letter, the world has coped with a couple more major hurricanes, a strong earthquake in Mexico City, continued wildfires in the west parts of the United States, and early snow in the mountains.  Also, the volcanic Mount Agung in Bali, the Indonesian Island just east of Java, has been shaking and showing signs of erupting for the first time in more than 50 years.  About 50,000 people have evacuated the area, but some don’t want to leave, and others return now and then, in order to tend to their animals.
Did you ever read or listen to interviews with people in harms’ way, and compare general attitudes?  Some have a hopeless, doomsday outlook, while others are busily working to make things work out as well as possible.  The ones who think all hope is lost are less likely to think of anything helpful to do, and rarely give a thought to helping someone else.
A man in one of the islands who planned to weather Hurricane Maria (maybe he didn’t have a choice) was evidently feeling isolated and helpless, for he told a reporter in a belligerent tone, “Nobody really cares about us.”  But he hadn’t lifted a finger to help anyone else.
Now, I full well realize that a lack of money can cause people to feel vulnerable and not know which way to turn, and I truly am sympathetic when such is the case.  But when people think in self-centered ways, whether they have money or not, it affects how they treat others, and such statements – ‘nobody loves me!’ – wind up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I recall what my father, who was a minister for 48 years, often said:  You want to know one sure way to learn that there are people who love you?  It’s this:  go around doing your dead level best to love them! 
It’s the wonderful old Golden Rule:  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “Whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye also reap,” and, as Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Look not every man on his own things, but on the things of others!”
That’s a very good way of coping with depression, too:  Love one another. 
A lot of depressed people need the Lord in their lives; that’s the truth of the matter.
In the last week, I’ve seen at least four different kinds of spiders – in my house.  I’ve seen three or four wolf spiders, a few granddaddy longlegs, a couple of little black fuzzy jumping spiders, and another that I’ve seen fairly often indoors.  Deciding to find out what kind it was, I typed into Google, ‘common house spider’.  Up came page after page of pictures of that very spider.  I thought, Good, now I can learn what its name is!  But every single picture was labeled ‘common house spider’.
?  Didn’t one solitary soul know what kind of a spider this was?  And if it was so rare and unique that no one knew what it was called, why were there so many pictures??
I finally, finally realized that that is its name:  ‘common house spider (Parasteatoda tepidariorum)’, referred to internationally as the American house spider.
Oh.
Have you ever seen a big ol’ mama pie-doe (as Dorcas used to call spiders, when she was about 1 ½) with a gazillion babies riding on her back?  Various species of the female wolf spider carry their young both before (in an egg sac) and after they hatch.  And have you seen what happens when they all get alarmed?
After hatching, wolf spiderlings head to their mother's abdomen, but the sheer number means that many end up on her back and legs.  She might be covered layers deep with baby spiders.  I remember how astonished I was to learn this, and here’s how it happened: 
Once upon a time, I tried shooing away a big ol’ wolf spider – and suddenly there were hundreds of spiderlings, charging pell-mell all over creation!
Hester and Victoria immediately leaned down to take a closer look.  Lydia and Caleb however, ran in midair a good three feet above the earth before gravity got the better of them.
Speaking of arachnids and bugs and insects...  do you remember when we threw Caleb out of the truck because he had ants in his pants?
No?
Well, we’d camped up in the mountains near Buena Vista, Colorado.  In the morning, we ate breakfast, and then the children played while I washed the dishes and Larry got the camper ready to go.
Then everyone piled into the six-door pickup and we headed out.  We were just pulling from the campground drive onto the graveled road that would take us to the highway when Caleb, about 4 or 5 years old, sitting on the front seat between us, squirmed around and cried, “Something’s biting me!”
Now, Larry had lived out there in that vicinity when he was little, so he immediately thought, Red ants!  He slammed on the brakes, flung open his door, grabbed Caleb, and, without one word of explanation, set him out on the ground, to Caleb’s great astonishment.  
“Tell the poor child what you’re doing!!!!” I exclaimed indignantly, so he did, as he hopped out to brush off Caleb’s clothes, turning them wrong side out to be sure to get the ants out of them.  There were only half a dozen ants or so, and none appeared in the pickup later.  
Caleb was reloaded into the truck, and life went on.  
Caleb did not seem to suffer any Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  When we got home, he could barely wait for the pickup to come to a halt before he was out and running down the street to tell his cousin Jason how “Daddy threw me out of the pickup!”
Tuesday, Victoria sent me a list of goofy ‘warning labels’, such as one on the side of a bag of peanuts:  under the large label reading “Peanuts” was a sticker that read, “Allergy advice!  This product contains peanuts!”
That reminded me of when I was little and traveling with my parents.  We’d come to one of those ‘Bridges May Be Icy’ or ‘Slick When Wet’ signs, and Daddy would shout, “SLICKERY WHEN SLICK!!!”  πŸ˜†
Tuesday, I mailed my customer’s quilts back to her.  I had my usual afternoon chat with my brother as I drove to town, and kept him entertained with stories of two overloaded trucks, one in front of me and one behind me, carrying huge trusses or prebuilt wood walls – I couldn’t tell which, from my vantage point.  Each truck had two accompanying escort vehicles, one before and one after, with flashing lights atop their roofs.  The trailers were very long, and had multiple axles, and the wooden forms hung out far to the right. 
The highway is a four-lane with a median.  It’s not an Interstate.
The first truck was going along okay until he mistakenly thought to take the bypass going north of town, realized his error, and veered back from turning lane onto the highway.  Meanwhile, another truck, this one loaded extra high, had pulled to the shoulder right there at that junction – and the overhanging walls or trusses on the long/wide load came alarmingly close to the tall load.  This seemed to put the long/wide driver in a tizzy, and he whipped back far to the left, winding up plowing along well off the narrow left shoulder with all left tires in the median, kicking up billows of dust. 
I thought he was going to hit the median curb that begins on the outskirts of town, but with a wild, teetering swerve, he managed to avoid it.
In the middle of all this, the overloaded truck behind me suddenly seemed frantic to catch up with his cohort.  His lead car went tearing around me... but of course that did him no good, as he was immediately stymied by the forward truck.
Add to this mix a little old ratty pickup with an impatient driver intent on getting around everybody (though he just plain couldn’t, as the trucks were taking up the middle of the road), alternately tailgating me and whizzing around me in aggravation as if I was creating the bottleneck.
As we came into town, we met a very large loader/grader racing along toward us pell-mell, bucket on the front and blade on the back bouncing crazily.  It looked something like this one, only with bucket and blade switched around.  Maybe the thing was traveling in reverse, and I was so caught up staring at the spring-sproinging attachments, I never noticed the cab was facing the wrong way?
All this time, I’d been giving my brother a running commentary on these events, and now I said, “I feel exactly as though I got dropped right into the middle of Laurel and Hardy’s Circus skit!”
He was laughing...
Then we got to a major intersection in town.  The escort vehicles and trucks needed to turn right.  Therefore, they all had on their right signals.  The trucks, needing a lot of turning space, pulled into the far left lane, and the escort cars tried to block the right lanes in order to give them room.  But there are invariably streams of idgets who come barreling up right smack beside a big truck that needs to turn, and there they sit in their Grand Importance, evidently too stupid to know that they have placed themselves exactly in harm’s way, should the driver not know they are there.
I lagged back.  Mr. Ratty Little Pickup driver rushed around me, turning his head around backwards like an old hoot owl (not to be confused with a wise old owl) to stare at me reproachfully.  Because I’m the CEO of all these tall, wide, and long truck companies, right?  And we operate and conduct business for the sole purpose of obstructing ratty little pickup drivers, right?
Then the light turned green, the overloaded truck started around the corner all in a big steam of too much hurry, rocking his load frighteningly – and Mr. Ratty Little Pickup driver belatedly recognized his peril and took off like a shot, blundering directly in front of that big truck’s huge, imposing bumper and grill guard. 
The truck did not slow.  Luckily, neither did Mr. RLPD.
He escaped with his life, though I believe a molecule or two of rust may have gotten scraped loose from his ratty little pickup and is probably now adorning the huge, imposing bumper and grill guard of the long, wide truck.
My brother was still laughing at my animated narrative.  I told him, “This reminds me of when I accidentally wound up in the middle of a funeral procession in Omaha, back when I was a teenager!”  This happened because some of the processors (members of a procession are called ‘processors’, right?) didn’t have their headlights on, evidently not knowing proper protocol for those who are part of a funeral procession.
Suddenly realizing my mistake, but having no way of immediately rectifying it, I quickly flipped on my lights and said to my friend, “Aaauugghh!  We’re in a funeral procession!  Look dour.”  (Don’t judge me; remember I was a teenager – and a somewhat irrepressible one, at that.  Shy but irrepressible, that was me.)
This statement of course had the opposite effect on my friend.  She slithered waaay down in her seat until no one could see anything but the top of her head, and she laughed ’til she cried. 
“For shame!” I rebuked her, “We’re in a funeral procession!” 
This in no way abated her hilarity.
Have you ever tried looking totally sober, somber, and solemn whilst seated next to someone who is laughing her fool head off??
Well, I gave serious effort to the task, until what time I could safely and unobtrusively exit the convoy.  Yikes.
When I got home (speaking of last Tuesday, rather than the day of the Omaha funeral), I loaded the baby quilt Lydia had made onto my quilting frame.  It’s called ‘Ladybug Landing’.
That afternoon, one of my cousins posted a picture of snow in the Montana mountains around her house.  She had snow on one side of her home, wildfires on the other.  They were hoping the moisture would help the firefighters corral the fires.
And 2,529 miles to our southeast, Hurricane Maria was closing in on St. Croix.  It would hit the Caribbean island as a Category 5 hurricane.  At least 30 people would lose their lives in the Caribbean Islands.
I got about halfway done with Lydia’s quilt that night.
Wednesday, I finished some laundry, paid some bills, washed some dishes, – and then my stomach growled, and it occurred to me that I’d forgotten to eat breakfast.
Soon a ciabatta roll was in the oven... a fresh egg was in a pan of boiling water (I like soft-boiled eggs)... and soon I would have breakfast.  It was past lunchtime, but I hadn’t had anything to eat yet.  Therefore, it was breakfast.  
The fresh egg was from the neighbors’ chickens, which Larry is caring for (along with the goats, guineas, and garden) while the neighbors are on a cruise to Alaska.
They promised to bring back lots of pictures.  I in turn promised to be jealous.  πŸ˜‰
Breakfast down the hatch, I resumed work on the baby quilt.  I got quite a bit done before time for church... and after we got home again and had a late supper, I decided to finish it.
I went down the stairs... and... just before I put my bare foot down on the carpet at the bottom of the steps, I saw what appeared to be a large black cricket in the final throes of death, toenails up toward the sky.  But... he didn’t look right.  Staying on my ‘safe’ last step of the staircase, I bent down to get a closer look (that corner is a bit shadowed)... and discovered... a wolf spider was having him for a midnight snack. 😜😝😬😱😨
Yeah, I smashed ’em both at once.
Don’t howl, you bleeding-hearts-for-web-spinners.  Congratulate me on my good aim and economy-in-action!  If spiders should not be squished, they should learn to stay outdoors.
On an online quilting group, we were discussing embellishments one can put on a quilt.  Someone mentioned small stuffed animals.
Stuffed animals!  That reminds me of a blanket I made for Victoria, when she was six years old.  I made it of soft white Egyptian cotton, and attached a bright blue and yellow paisley wide ribbon binding.
I put the rest of it together by hand, in my mother’s hospital room.  I visited her for a little while each afternoon, and I always brought along some handwork.  She enjoyed seeing the things I was making.
I decided to put half – the front half – of a teddy bear on this Egyptian cotton blanket.
I’d taken along my heavy-duty long-bladed shears in anticipation of the job.  The teddy bear was a dapper ravel-furred thing in rusty orange, with a black suede nose and big, sad embroidered eyes.  I got it from the Goodwill for $1.50.  It was not small.
So that Mama would be looking, I remarked, “I think I’ll put part of this teddy bear on Victoria’s blanket.”
She looked at me questioningly – and then she looked really astonished when I cut right into that bear, slicing it in half so that the front side and the back side were in two separate pieces.
And then Mama got all struck funny and couldn’t quit laughing, even though it was hard for her to laugh, as she was on oxygen.
It took me a couple more afternoon visits to get the bear front sewn onto the blanket (I used one of those big curved needles, and heavy-duty buttonhole thread). 
It was nearing the middle of December, and Mama knew I planned to give the blanket to Victoria for Christmas; but she asked if I would bring Victoria to the hospital and let her open the present early, so she could watch.  I promised I would, just as soon as I finished.
But the day after I completed the blanket, Mama passed away, so that didn’t happen.
Victoria opened her blanket at Christmastime, pulled it out of the box, found the bear sewn to it, and started laughing.  I described how her Grandma had laughed when I sliced that bear in half.  For years thereafter, she called it “my blanket Grandma laughed about”.
I have pictures of that blanket, but they are in an album, printed on paper.  One of these days, I need to scan my printed photos.
Have you ever noticed that descendants will sometimes say something that a grandparent used to say, even when they never knew that grandparent?  Just a few days ago, Victoria said teasingly to someone about her Baby Carolyn, “Of course she knows what I mean!  She’s a smart little cookie!”
I laughed and told her, “And you never even knew that your Grandpa (my father) used to call his grandchildren ‘smart little cookies’.” 
Isn’t that funny?  Daddy passed away five years before Victoria was born.  Neither Larry nor I use that particular phrase. 
Just last week I looked at the calendar and realized it was 25 years to the day since my father passed away.  And I thought, What if he could see his family now?  And the church he started...  He’d always wanted us to have a church school – and we were finally able to start it, the year before he died.  He died in 1992.  Since then, somewhere in the vicinity of 200 students (that number might be low) (or high) have graduated.  He would be so amazed.
He even has a great-great-grandson named after him!  And the funny thing is, the little guy looks a bit like my father did when he was little.
Late that night, I finished quilting the baby quilt ‘Ladybug Landing’.  The pattern is in a book called Cute Quilts for Kids.  The link is here.
Thursday, I started working on a quilt for Todd and Dorcas.  I knew I didn’t have long, because another quilt from my Washington State customer was already on the way. 
Also, the end of the world was fast approaching.
Yeah, another ‘prophetic’ ignoramus had decided the world would end on Saturday, the 24th.
People like that bring reproach to the name of the Lord.  The Bible says false prophets will suffer worse afflictions in the end than those who don’t even profess to believe anything.
Why does anyone even pay them any attention?
Friday he announced that the End had once again been postponed, though lots of bad things would happen, and the End would definitely be drawing nearer.
Yeah, well.  We knew that before he told us.
I’ve always believed that not a solitary soul on this earth will predict the day that the Lord will actually come.  After all, it says in Matthew 24:44, “Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”
Here is the quilt I drew up in EQ7 for Todd and Dorcas’ quilt.  I have no idea how closely my end result will match that pattern.  For starters, the flowers will only have six petals, rather than twelve.
I therefore cut 216 petals, using the Sizzix eclips2 cutter the children gave me for Christmas last year.
I’ve used the 12” x 24” fabric-cutting mat enough that now I need to clean it and reapply spray adhesive.  Someone recommended baby wipes to clean it, and a few people said that Elmer’s spray-on adhesive works just as well as the Sizzix spray adhesive, and is not nearly so expensive.  Sooo... I ordered wet wipes and Elmer’s spray-on adhesive. 
It was snowing again in West Yellowstone, Montana... the high elevations of Idaho, Wyoming, and even in the Sierra Nevadas, the mountain range shared by California and Nevada.  And it was the last day of summer!
Meanwhile, it was 96° here, with a heat index of 103°.  A couple of monarch butterflies came drifting through.  The Painted Ladies are beginning to head south... while the hummingbirds are still conducting territorial warfare in the vicinity of the hummingbird feeder.
I posted pictures of the Baskets of Lilies quilt, the petals, and the eclips2 cutter online and remarked that I needed to buy background fabric, and that EQ7 said I needed 13 ¼ yards.
People immediately started telling me that that was too much fabric.
Probably so.  But those who informed me that I only needed four or five yards must have never made a king-sized quilt, nor are they taking into consideration that the majority of the blocks are cut totally from background fabric, with the petals appliquΓ©d on top. 
At any rate, I’m plumb out of background fabric of any neutral color, especially white, so buying a bolt or two wouldn’t be a bad idea.  Also, I might make matching pillows. 
I’m still playing around with size. In designing things in EQ7, I spend some time getting it all pleasing to the eye... and then, when I pull up one solitary block in order to get templates, rotary cutting measurements, or foundation instructions, I discover I have patches whose measurements run into the 32nds of an inch!  I can tell the program to round them to the nearest 8th, but I’d rather change the block size just a wee bit until the patch measurements are closer to ‘common’ so they’ll match up with my June Tailor shape-cutting ruler.
I have discovered that when those patches are odd sizes, EQ7 thinks I cannot then do rotary cutting, but must cut each patch individually – and the program then adds yardage to the estimate accordingly. EQ7 has an improvement over EQ5 in that it doesn’t always assume that a 100” border, for instance, must be cut on the grain with no seams.  Also, you can change WOF (width of fabric) to whatever you wish.
I checked out the matter with several online fabric calculators, and I see that most of them recommend approximately 10 ½ yards (of backing) for this size of a quilt.  Background fabric for the quilt top would be a little less, but not as much less as one might think.  I’ll betcha when I get the block/patch size more ‘normal’, without all those odd fractions, the yardage EQ7 advises will drop a bit from that 13 ¼-yard amount.
All that being said, I’ve already ordered 15 yards of a white-on-white fabric with this funny name: Essentials Cookie Dough Dancing Buds Sugar I needed more white-on-white anyway.  I paid $6.64 per yard.  Shipping is free at www.fabric.com when an order is over $35.
One lady advised me that the petals are ‘mostly white’, and won’t show up on a white background.  Maybe her monitor is set on ‘extra bright’... but the petals are cream/beige, with pinks and periwinkles and greens.  The background I ordered is bright white.  I plan to use a blanket stitch in either periwinkle or pink or both.  I’ll use high-loft batting, and quilt around but not on the petals. 
They’ll show up.  😏
Friday I started pulling fabrics from my stash for the 25 Basket blocks.  After choosing a variety of greens that coordinated well, I cut 75 stems.  Using the freezer-paper-and-starch method, I turned under and pressed the edges of the 50 curved stems, preparing them for appliquΓ©.  I’ll be able to fold under and press the seams on the 25 straight stems without using freezer paper or starch.
People often remark that this must be a tedious and finicky job.  But I don’t mind it; on the contrary, I enjoy it.  I crank up the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, or Rudy Atwood and Paul Mickelson, or The Happy Goodmans, sing lustily (the cats don’t mind), and work away.
I posted this picture of all those stems, and someone commented underneath it, “Looks it i of a mess.”
Eh? 
I wanted to retort, “Sort of like your sentence?” but I refrained.
’Til now.  😏
I was so... so... proud of that mess!
A friend from somewhere over in the east went for a hike, and wound up with seed ticks all over her legs.
I told her, “Set a bunch of guineas loose in those woods!  They’ll chow down on all the ticks in short order.”
Our new (well, not so new now; they’ve been here for a couple of years) neighbors have guineas, as mentioned.  Such funny birds.  I like to hear them.  They’re like watchdogs.  They scream if a strange (or well-known) car drives up the lane.  They scream if a wild (or tame) animal approaches.  They scream if a door slams (or if it doesn’t).  They scream if the wind blows (or if it stops blowing).  (The wind always blows, in Nebraska.)
Remember Lydia’s ceramic doll that got broken a few months ago, that I tried (and failed) to repair, and then sent to a friend who fixes dolls, telling her she could keep it if she wanted to?  Well, when I sent it to my friend, I couldn’t find the bonnet that went with the doll, and figured it was probably mixed in with Victoria’s heaps of doll clothes.  But Friday afternoon, I scooted the table out – and there was the bonnet, lying peacefully on a kitchen chair.
I wrote to my friend, “Guess what I just found?  The crawling doll’s bonnet!” – at least, that’s what I intended to write.  But I was using my tablet, and the dumb thing thinks it knows better than me what to say, and it changed ‘doll’ to ‘fool’.  hee hee
Do crawling fools wear bonnets?
I told all this to my friend, and added, “I’ll send it to you the next time I go to town.  The bonnet, not the crawling fool.”  πŸ˜„
When Larry came home from work, he brought the mail from the mailbox over on the old highway – including a package with a quilt from my customer in Washington State.  I’d been expecting a box rather than a soft package – and I certainly didn’t think the mail lady would cram that big package into the box.  There was another package, too, and several other pieces of mail – it was all a very tight fit.  I thought if the quilt arrived, she’d bring it to my door, as she sometimes does.  Guess I should’ve gone and checked the mailbox!
Saturday afternoon, I happened to be looking out the window when Larry went rumbling past on the lane in his big Dodge dually extended cab with the Cummins diesel engine, on his way up to the neighbors’ to care for animals furred and feathered, and bring back any tomatoes and squash that are ripe and eggs that have been laid.  I added squash and tomatoes to our stuffed peppers that night for supper.  Stuffed peppers... our favorite meal!
Big ol’ Tiger kitty is lying on the kitchen floor several feet away from me.  His back is to me... but all I have to do is say, “Nice kitty!” ... “Good ol’ kitty!” --- and he starts up a purr with a rumble loud enough to vibrate the floor.  πŸ˜„  I got dietary Iams for him, and maybe, possibly, he just might have lost a few ounces.  Maybe.  He’s the fattest cat I’ve ever seen – and he was that way when he came to us as a stray.  We saw him wandering the neighborhood for a while before he summoned the courage to come close to us.  How in the world does a stray cat get to be obese?!  He’s clumsy, too.  He purrs ’round and ’round our ankles, hurrying quickly to turn around and make another pass before we can take a step, trying his best to keep us corralled and paying him lots of attention, and he trips all over our feet in the process.  We laugh, and he stares up into our faces and says, “MRRROWW.” in his scratchy bass voice.  hee hee
I really don’t understand people who dump their pets.  I’d like to dump them – preferably on some deserted island with, oh, I don’t, know, scorpions and snakes and wild boars, maybe.  This kitty has such a sweet disposition, and is very loving.  He loves us to love him.  And feed him.
After measuring my customer’s quilt, I went to Hobby Lobby for the batting I needed.  A few friends have kindly sent links to bargains on large rolls of batting... but my frame doesn’t have the bar to store it on, and I don’t have a good place to keep it, and would find it difficult to manage such a big roll.  So, until I get a big, new, fancy-schmancy frame, I just buy the size of batting I need, when I need it – and use my 40%-off coupon whenever I can. 
Home again, I loaded the quilt and got on with the quilting.  This quilt is called ‘Golden Days of Hollywood, and I’m using a pantograph called ‘Drama’ consisting of happy and sad masks.  After one row, I got my flashlight and mirror and took a look at the underside... and it looks ooo-la-la-neato (if ‘Drama’ masks can be ooo-la-la-neato).  The fabric on the front’s a little busy, but the ‘Drama’ masks show up here and there.  On the back, they show well.  I’m using a pale silvery-gray thread on top, and cream on the back.
A storm hit parts of town Sunday afternoon.  We barely got a few raindrops, but could hear thunder some distance away.  Caleb and Maria had quarter-sized hail – and one of their big blue spruce trees came down – fortunately, not onto the house.
That evening, I was getting ready for church.  Twice in the last week, I have damaged a piece of clothing with too much, and too hot of, steam.  The iron itself never touched the fabric.  Last evening was episode #2.  I quickly ran water over the fabric, and put it into the dryer on low heat. 
The other item was a silky blouse, and there is still (and will always be) a slightly light-colored spot under one arm.  Not too noticeable, and I usually wear it under a suit in any case.  It was a Goodwill bargain, so no big loss.  This time, it was the jumper part of a two-piece dress suit, and the steam hit the lower part of the back skirt area.  It’s a hand-me-down from daughter Hester and several years old, but quite nice and one of my favorite dress suits.  I’m not suffering from lack of clothing, but... still.
Half an hour later, I got my dress out of the dryer, and found to my relief that it was almost as good as new.  There’s only a slight paleness to the dark green in one tiny spot way down near the hem – and since I’m short, the hem is at my ankles.  Larry couldn’t find the spot when I asked.
Dress is saved!
Victoria sent us some pictures of Baby Carolyn and the cutest video clip of the baby smiling at her Aunt Maria.  All the nieces and nephews love Aunt Maria. 😊
Lydia then posted pictures of Baby Malinda in an adorable little mouse outfit.  She’s such a sweet baby.  She has a good disposition, and is almost always happy and smiling.
Well, I’ve had my usual afternoon phone chat with my brother (I like to make sure he’s all right every day – and he is, still going strong; just had his 79th birthday last month)... had lunch with Larry... have the 2nd load of clothes in the wash, with the first load in the dryer (it’s rainy outside, so I can’t hang things out; boo-hoo, I like sheets that have hung out in the sun)... and now I need to order groceries and supplies online, and pay some bills. 
I got a shipment from Wal-Mart:  a long, fancy-schmancy curtain rod for son-in-law Bobby’s Mosaic Sailboat quilt – I discovered when I ‘borrowed it back’ from him to take to the fair that the rod I’d originally given him was too short.  This one should do the trick. 
I also got several jugs of Martinelli’s Unfiltered Apple Juice to give to Caleb and Maria, and Teddy and Amy, whose anniversaries are coming up on October 13th.  Best apple juice we’ve ever had.  It’s not from concentrate.  Tastes like fresh-juiced apples.  Mmmm, mmm.  Caleb and Maria will have their 4th anniversary, Teddy and Amy their 15th.  I ordered some raw honey from the Ambrosia Honey Company for each of them, too.  Teddy and Amy will get a few extra jugs of juice and an extra bottle of honey, because they’ll be sharing with their nine kiddos.  πŸ˜‰
It’s been a couple of weeks since I cut my finger.  It hasn’t healed very well.  I really should have had a stitch or two put in it. 
I told Larry, “The time is now to rob a bank, because I have altered fingerprints.”
He said, “They don’t have your fingerprints on file anywhere in the first place.”
He’s such a killjoy. 
Somewhere around these parts, some young hoodlums robbed a bank, raced out the door, carjacked someone who was driving what they thought looked like a racy speedster (unless it was a speedy racer) ... and then were totally foiled by the fact that it was a manual-shift, and they had no more idea than the man in the moon how to drive a stick-shift. 
They went hiccupping along, killed the thing a number of times – and then after it died for the final time, they climbed out with their hands up into the waiting arms of the law, who were trying to restrain their humor at the spectacle of the lurching vehicle.
They were trying.
One time I got pulled over by the State Patrol because I hadn’t slowed in a construction zone – hadn’t even known there was a construction zone (it was all occurring on the south-going side of the four-lane, and I was going north), and I hadn’t seen a lower speed-limit sign, either, probably because I’d been passing a couple of big trucks, and they’d blocked the sign from view.
I pulled over onto the shoulder, wondering what the matter was, since I’d had my cruise control on, and had been careful to set it at the right speed.
The patrolman walked up to my window; I lowered it.
He peered in at me.  Then, “You don’t look like a desperado!” he said, so I laughed and told him, “Looks can be deceiving!”
Got out of it with nothing but a verbal warning.
I don’t suppose they give verbal warnings for bank robberies?
Okay, I’ve watered the houseplants, and now I’m ready to quilt.  Well, almost...
***
I just discovered I can play the piano again, badly-healed finger or not!

Well, that was a lot of blither.  Hope your coffee held you through it.  πŸ˜†


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



Monday, September 18, 2017

Journal: Quilts & Butterflies & Lots of Thread

There are still Painted Ladies by the thousands all over and around the Autumn Joy sedum.
The cause of this butterfly explosion, according to the Columbus Telegram and the Lincoln Journal Star is the decent amount of rain that fell in California earlier this year, where Painted Ladies start their migration.  The rain led to more flowering plants for nectar, which boosted butterfly numbers.
The butterflies’ migration can extend 9,000 miles and span six generations.  The butterflies currently found in Nebraska are migrating and preparing to lay eggs for the next cycle.
Larry is afraid that after walking down our front walk to the Jeep, swarmed by Painted Ladies, he’ll sit down in church – and butterflies will start emanating from him in huge fluttering swirls.  haha
A friend just posted a photo of herself on Facebook, then commented on how gray she has become.  I responded, “I like gray and white hair!  It’s always kind of scary when you are following what you imagine to be a teenager because of her swinging blond ponytail, then she turns around and you discover she’s 93 if she’s a day.  Gray is better. 🀣
A teenage boy recently complimented husband Larry and I with, “You both look so young!”  (We are both 56, and both have silver-gray hair.)  We duly thanked him.
After leaving the store, I told Larry, “Don’t get all conceited.  He thinks we’re actually 85.”
By Tuesday, any Friends and Relations (Γ  la Rabbit, of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) I knew who had been in Hurricane Irma’s path had all checked in as safe.  One couple was without power, but their home was all right, and a neighbor was letting them use his generator for a few hours, then using it himself for a while, then letting them use it again, in order to keep both families’ freezers and refrigerators cold.  One friend had a tree come down and punch right through roof and ceiling into their living room – but the tree arched over the husband’s vehicle without harming it; he was glad for that.  My cousin and her husband, who pilots tour boats for Disney World, evacuated ahead of the storm, and managed to snag a hotel room in Chattanooga.  What is normally a 9-hour drive from Winter Haven turned into a 17-hour drive.  After a couple of days in Chattanooga, they went on to Shelbyville, Illinois, where her sister and husband live, and other cousins.  That’s my father’s hometown.
They headed back home in a few days, and found their house still intact.  They hadn’t even lost electricity. 
Early Tuesday afternoon, Teensy came back.  You’ll recall he had a little skirmish with a polecat Monday night?  My nose didn’t complain too awfully much at all when he came in and sat down to have himself a meal.  Those pet wipes I’d used on him the night before did a pretty good job, evidently.  Poor little thing, he was sooo thirsty.  I’d put water outside for him, both on the front porch and on the back deck; but he prefers running water from the tub faucet, pΓ΄r fΔ…vΓΆr.  He just couldn’t quit drinking!  Maybe he tried cleaning himself off, and got the skunk parfum in his mouth.  That would sure make a guy thirsty.
Hummingbirds were at the feeder that day, and there was a pretty little chickweed geometer moth on the screen.  I grabbed my macro lens and got a few shots of the moth.  I’ve taken numerous photos of them, but have never once gotten one on a pretty background.
That afternoon, I cut my right index finger rather badly while talking to my brother Loren on the phone.  He didn’t know anything happened, as I kept still, and he couldn’t see me grimacing and rushing for a paper towel.
What happened was, I was getting something out of the cupboard when a box of aluminum foil fell out.  I stupidly tried to catch it, and the metal serrated edge of the box sliced a long, deep, jagged slash right through the pad of my index finger, from fingernail to first knuckle.  Since then, things such as bathing, washing my hair, and blow-drying and curling it have been difficult, with the index finger on my right hand out of commission.  I am not ambidextrous.  Amazing how injuring just one small digit can stymie a person.  Or at least it sure slows me down. 
It probably needed stitches, but I’m making do with butterfly bandages, Band-Aids, and triple-antibiotic medicine.  The most aggravating thing is trying to type.
It’s healing, but the tip of my finger might never feel quite normal again.
Once poor Teensy came in the house, ate, and drank his fill, he slept, and slept, and slept.  Getting skunked is an exhausting trauma!
I’ll betcha Teensy tried doing to the skunk what he periodically does to the other cats:  they walk past him (nervously, recognizing that devilish gleam in his eyes), and just as they get far enough to relax and suppose themselves safe, he swats them on the rump, THWACK! 
I’ll betcha the ol’ skunk went a-waddlin’ past, unconcerned about the cat as he sat calmly,  waiting... waiting... waiting...  and then – ka-SLAP!!!  And the skunk, startled, let loose a small bit of stinkum before realizing, Oh, it’s just you, you stupid feline.  Skunks keep their spray as a last resort, as it takes a while for it to replenish, and once it’s gone, they are practically defenseless for a while.  They carry only enough of the chemical for five or six uses – about 15cc – and require some ten days to produce another supply. 
Teensy barely smells bad anymore, thankfully.  Mostly, it’s like a souped-up case of new-puppy breath.  πŸ˜„πŸ˜
A large shoebox full of #60 Bottom Line thread for my quilting machine came that day, containing many colors I need.  I bought it from a lady who posted three lots of the thread on SewItsForSale.  The box arrived with the paper covering it all ripped and torn nearly off – and the whole box was covered with dirt, like it had been out in a dust storm.  But inside, all the thread was fine.
The UPS man apologized, saying it had arrived at their store like that.
Note:  it is never a good idea to cover a box you are sending with paper, never mind which carrier you are using.  It will almost always get ripped, and if the label is only on the paper and nowhere else, your box is going to be lost to the four winds.
The lady from whom I bought it was all apologetic, though it really wasn’t her fault. 
Ah, well.  No harm done, and it gives me the opportunity to make up tall tales about what might have happened to the box and where it might have gone. 
Maybe it got misdirected to the Saudi Peninsula and fell out of the helicopter during a terrible dirt storm.  But nobody in Al Khobar had a longarm machine, so they sent it back!
I bought another big shoebox full of thread from her a week after purchasing the first.  I now have over $500 worth of bobbin thread (it can be used on top, too, though I prefer heavier-weight thread for the top) for either longarm or embroidery machine – and I paid about half that amount.
The lady sent the second box of thread wrapped in paper – and it, too, arrived with the paper nearly ripped off, though not embedded with dirt like the last one was.
The lady called the UPS to report the matter, and they told her not to wrap her boxes with paper.  Do you remember the days of yesteryear, when packages were wrapped in brown paper and tied with string?
If you wonder why I order longarm thread... well, they don’t sell it in this burg – or at least, not the large cones I usually need.  Nor is it sold in any nearby town.  I get cones with 3,000 yards on them.  At Country Traditions in Fremont, they sell smallish spools of Aurifil long-arm thread, and they don’t have a very big selection of colors.  I like to buy from www.sewthankful.com, because it’s run by a Christian family... but it’s a small business, and they often don’t have the color I want on hand.  They have to order it from their supplier, so it can take 5-7 days to get here.  So if I’m in a hurry, I order from Red Rock Threads in Pahrump, Nevada.  Here’s a funny-odd bit of trivia about Pahrump:  it’s unincorporated, even though the population is about 36,500.
The thread I ordered late Thursday night, when I saw I was probably going to run out of top thread before I ran out of quilt, got here early this afternoon.  However, I already finished the quilt Friday evening.
Longarm thread is a lot longer-stapled than regular sewing thread, and thus doesn’t break as easily – a requirement for a machine that goes 1,200 stitches per minute or faster.  Domestic sewing machines are usually under 1,000 spm.  The APQS longarm machine goes about 3,600 spm.  That’s fast!
I like Superior threads.  They have quite a variety of types, colors, and weight.  I generally use #50 So Fine on top, and #60 Bottom Line on the bottom.  (The higher the number, the finer the thread.  There’s an explanation on www.superiorthreads.com, if you’re interested.)
Wednesday, I asked Victoria how she and Baby Carolyn were doing. 
Pretty good,” she responded.  “The baby finally slept most of the night last night and we got some much-needed sleep.”
She suggested I use Larry’s method of gorilla glue for my finger.
“Ah ain’t no gorilla; cain’t use me no gorilla glue-’em!” I protested.
After church, I finished quilting my customer’s quilt called ‘Easy Street’.
Thursday, I began working on the lady’s next quilt, which was called ‘Sidelights’ and was made of Asian fabrics.  The pantograph is called Paisley Park.
That afternoon, Loren brought us a jug of Martinelli’s unfiltered, not-from-concentrate, apple juice.  Mmmm... best apple juice ever.

Sometime later that day, I looked at the calendar and realized that it was exactly 25 years ago that day that my father had died.  Hard to believe it’s been that long.
Friday afternoon, I was quilting away on my customer’s Asian fabric ‘Sidelights’ quilt... looked at the cone of variegated coral thread... and knew it wasn’t going to last.  I hated to think I might be stalled out until my thread from Red Rocks arrived.  I could remove this quilt and put on another... but I’m never very fond of that idea.
On a whim, hoping things might have changed and they would now stock it, I grabbed the phone and called my favorite quilt shop in town, Sew What, which is owned by a lady with whom I went to school. 
“Do you have longarm thread?” I asked when someone answered the phone.
The woman on the other end of the line (or radio wave, as it were) didn’t have a clue.  About anything, I don’t believe.
(No, it wasn’t my friend from school; she knows where every speck of lint is, in her store.)
The lady went for help.  Maybe she’d never heard of a longarm.
Maybe she’d never heard of longarm thread.
Maybe she’d never heard of thread.
Maybe she really worked at the flower shop next door, and had hit the wrong entrance, and nobody, including the woman herself, had noticed her error yet.
Someone else picked up the phone.  “Hello?”
I restated my request.
She didn’t know either, but walked back to the thread rack to take a look.
Then, “No, we don’t carry longarm thread,” she said in a tone of finality.
I waited a moment, wondering if she really knew what she was talking about, and if I should rephrase the question.  I could hear her plunkity-plunking spools of thread around.
Then she muttered, almost to herself... “Machine quilting thread... long-stapled...”  She petered out.  “Nope,” she reaffirmed.
“Well, but that’s it!” I exclaimed, getting all excited.  “Do you have any variegated thread?  In coral?  I’m using King Tut.”
“Oh?” she said doubtfully.  “No, this isn’t King Tut.”  (pause)  Since I hadn’t yet politely taken ‘no’ for an answer, as she seemed to hope I would do, she added discouragingly, “Yes, here’s some variegated coral; but it has many tones in it, all the way from pink to orange.  I doubt if it would match.”
I doubted if it wouldn’t.  “What time do you close?” I asked, and she told me.
I grabbed my dwindling cone of thread, stuck my feet in sandals, snatched up my purse, and trotted out the door.
They had no cones, as she’d said; only spools.  Spools with a measly 500 yards on them.  But the variegated YLI coral thread was very, very close to matching perfectly.  On my customer’s busily flowered fabric, any disparity would never be noticed.
I paid $8.83 (counting tax) for those 500 yards of thread.
A spool holding 400 yards of Coats & Clark Dual Duty general purpose thread, which is what a majority of seamstresses use, costs $1.79.  The 3,000-yard cone I just got today cost $23.95.  I would need six spools of YLI thread to equal the amount of thread on the Superior cone.  And that would come to a total of $52.98!!!  Good grief.
But I really, really needed to finish that quilt.  So I bought the thread.
And finish the quilt I did.  Now I’m ready to quilt Lydia’s cute ‘Lil Ladybug’ quilt.
That day, Victoria sent a picture of Baby Carolyn, asking, “Doesn’t this look like me?”
The sweet little baby was just working on a smile, and a whole bunch of work it is, too.
“Quite a lot!” I answered Victoria’s question.  “New babies’ earliest on-purpose smiles are often a thoughtful job of face-working, aren’t they?  I got so many pictures of first smiles with faces so similar to this.  What they’re doing is working hard to imitate the smiling faces looking down at them.  So very sweet.”
Shortly thereafter, Lydia posted an adorable picture of dear little Baby Malinda.  Being two and a half months older, she’s just about got those smiles down pat.  😍
Isn’t it something to think how these tiny lives have so much potential, and yet, right now, they are totally, absolutely, completely dependent on others to love and care for them?  And they totally trust that they will be cared for, without consciously understanding it.  Precious little babies.
Friday night I finished quilting the ‘Sidelights’ quilt, and Saturday I quilted a sports-themed table runner for Hannah’s children’s piano teacher, the elderly lady who has had a return of cancer, and is trying hard to finish quilts for her family while she still feels well enough to do so. 
I posted some photos:
Sunday morning I barely had time to get ready for church, even though I allowed myself 2 ½ hours.  First, the sweater vest I steamed was too small.  Not much, but enough that I didn’t like it.  Stands to reason, though, since it was one I wore in high school, 40 years ago.  When I went to steam the next one (which happens to be too big, but that’s better than too small), the iron spewed all over it, because I pressed ‘steam’ before the thing was hot again.  On top of all that, this booboo on my right index finger slows me down a lot.  Fortunately, I had yet another sweater to don.
Good thing I’d cut my hair the day before, so it didn’t take so long to dry and curl.
Some friends of ours who had been vacationing in the Tetons, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks were home again.  They posted some of their beautiful photos on Instagram, including some of Old Faithful Geyser.
Once upon a time we were at Old Faithful, along with hundreds of people sitting around the geyser, waiting for it to erupt.  We had seven kids with us; it was two months before Caleb was born.  Hester was three.  Everyone was chattering... and then the geyser spluttered loudly, and everyone abruptly quieted in anticipation. 
Into this silence Hester piped, “It’s about to sprout!!!” – and that was the end of the silence.
Bobby and Hannah and family came visiting last night after church, bringing a scrumptious pear dessert Hannah had made, with ice cream to go with it.  The pear filling had cream cheese in it, and there was a streusel topping.  Not too sweet... just right. 
We enjoyed the visit.
The butterflies are still going strong around here. 
On the West Point radio station, the announcer said the butterflies are coming from South Dakota.  Hmmm.  That’s New and Different information.  I wonder who’s right?
Time for a bit more research...
++++++++
Ooooookay.  Here’s The Rest of the Story:
Royce Bitzer, an entomologist at Iowa State University, said there is an abundance of Painted Ladies in areas across the region, including in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.
Larson attributes the butterfly boom to the ample rains earlier this year in California, where the Painted Ladies get their start. The rain produced more flowering plants, providing an abundance of nectar that boosted the Painted Lady population.
The butterflies spend the summer in cooler places like North Dakota and Canada, Larson said, but as fall approaches they head south, passing through Nebraska.  In a week or two, they’ll be heading for warmer climates.
So now we know the whole answer.  The radio and the newspapers didn’t really contradict each other; it was just that neither one told the story in full!
We also have white-lined Sphinxes (aka hummingbird moths) buzzing around the hosta blossoms.  I should try photographing them again, this time with my camera set on ‘sports mode’, and maybe that would speed the shutter up enough that I could catch those wings with a little less motion.
A cousin of mine who lives in Montana just posted a picture of snow in the mountains.  She has snow on one side of her home; wildfires on the other.  They hope the snow and cooler temperatures will put out the fires.
Our neighbors have gone on a cruise to Alaska.  Meanwhile, Larry is carrying for their goats, chickens, guineas, and the garden.  All the eggs and the garden produce is ours to keep.  Now we need a couple heads of lettuce to go with all these delicious tomatoes!  I had a peanut butter/tomato sandwich for supper.  If you haven’t ever had one, and decide to give it a try, for pity’s sake, toast the bread.  Don’t tell me you don’t like it, if you haven’t toasted the bread.  Bleah.
Here’s Teensy, snoozing in my chair.  You’d think the cat would get cramps in his toes, the way he sleeps with them curled up so tightly.

And now, I believe a soft-to-medium-boiled egg fresh from the henhouse would hit the spot.


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