Journal: Uncle's Funeral, Snowy Days, & Finally Quilting

Last Monday morning, I trotted out to the kitchen, mouth all polished up and watering, thinking of the one last waffle left over from Sunday’s lunch.

It was gone.  Not on the table in the bag I’d seen it in the night before... not in the refrigerator.  It was gone.

I slogged my way through some oatmeal instead.

Granted, it was Raisin, Date, Walnut oatmeal, my favorite; but it was not a waffle.

Therefore, I slogged.

At precisely 9:34 p.m., I spotted that waffle – way up on the top shelf in the refrigerator.

Who puts things on the top shelf of a refrigerator, anyway, for cryin’ out loud??

Knowing I wouldn’t be eating it until Wednesday morning, I put it on the lowest shelf in the refrigerator, cleeeear at the back.  Short people hide things down low.

Wednesday morning, I happily pulled out the waffle... toasted it... slathered it with butter... drenched it with Log Cabin syrup (Lite!, mind you)... and ate it with relish.  (Not the condiment; the attitude.)

Larry came home at noon, opened the refrigerator, looked on the top shelf... then turned around and looked at me.

“Well, it was mine!” I told him defensively.  “And you tried to hide it from me!” (in an accusatory tone)  “You had three on Sunday!”

(I actually thought he’d only had two, but I always accuse him of having one more than I think he’s had, on the chance he had one when I wasn’t looking.  Besides, it had been three days, and after all that time, he might forget how many he really had.)

He grinned (maybe I guessed right?)... and slogged his way through a chicken pot pie.

Tuesday was the day of Uncle Clyde’s funeral.  Larry was supposed to bring me a new blow dryer that morning, since mine had gone kaput on Sunday.  It would blow for just a minute or two before switching off.  But Larry was busy clearing snow off first Teddy’s drive and then ours, and he didn’t go buy the blow dryer until late morning.  When he finally came home, he forgot the thing in his pickup while he worked on our own driveway.  By the time he remembered and stuck the box with the new blow dryer in the front door, it was noon.

By then my hair was long dried, coiffed, and shellacked.  I’d picked the lint out of the fan cover of the old blow dryer with a pair tweezers, winding up with enough fuzz to make a toupee for a Chihuahua; and, lo and behold, the blow dryer blew harder than it has for a coon’s age, and it didn’t shut off, either.

You’ll recall that Larry had been working on his four-wheel-drive Massey Ferguson tractor for a couple of days, putting the bucket on it, hooking up hydraulic lines, and suchlike, readying it for scooping snow?  Well, that morning, thinking everything was ready to go, he began backing it out of Walkers’ shop, where he’d been working on it.

The front wheels weren’t engaging, even though he’d shifted into four-wheel-drive.

Larry took a closer look.  The driveshaft was turning... the axle was turning... the wheels weren’t pulling.

Turns out, the gears at either end of the axle were gone.  Missing entirely.

He called the man from whom we bought it in Dove Creek, Colorado.  The man was surprised – he’d never used it in four-wheel-drive, while he’d owned it.  He didn’t have those gears.  Sooo... Larry started hunting for parts.  Tractor parts aren’t cheap.

Meanwhile, he borrowed Walkers’ big skid loader and used that to push snow.  The drift covering Teddy’s drive and front walk was well over six feet high.

The most surprising part of this entire story is that we actually got to the church in plenty of time for the funeral.  After the service, not as many went to the cemetery as usual, as it was so cold and windy, and there was only one lane cleared on some of the cemetery roads, so we had to park a ways away and walk some distance.  I really must invest in some leather or suede dress boots!  I put on my warm, non-skid, black, lined Sorel boots with fur along the top edge – but they are mostly rubber, and every other lady with boots had nice dress boots.  

I commented on this to Victoria, who was walking beside me, and she said consolingly, “Well, at least they’re not yellow.”  

I told her to behave, and not make her mother giggle at the cemetery.  

I saw a few young ladies who were wearing spike-heeled sandals, of all things!!  Yikes.  I guess they could use those heels like cleats, come to think of it.

Here’s a picture of the bouquet I ordered for the funeral:

The lady at Blossoms Floral told me Monday when I called that they’d gotten no shipments of flowers on account of the blizzard, and were running low.  So I asked her to throw in greenery... dried pods... any sort of anything, to make it colorful and big; and to add a ribbon with ‘Beloved Uncle’ on it. 

Big bouquets are expensive these days, but we were happy with it.  I was so disappointed with the one I got for a funeral a year or more ago.  We spent quite a lot of money on it, and wound up with a twig in a glass.  That’s what it seemed like, anyway, in comparison to everyone else’s.  I’d chosen a picture they had on the website.  The picture and the reality were not one and the same.

Wednesday, it was bright and sunny, getting up to 31°, and the wind was only blowing at 7 mph.  Practically unheard of, in these parts.  The snow melted down a few inches on our back deck, the birds scuffled it off the railing, and Larry scooped it over to the bird feeders before it occurred to me to take pictures – but you can still tell plenty of white stuff came down.

I did a bit of computer work, and some babysitting of the new quilt group I started on www.mewe.com after Yahoo groups crashed last Sunday.  Yahoo groups did come back to life, sort of; but many have limited functions.

Most of those who have made the switch to MeWe are figuring it out all right, though one person threw herself down on the floor and had a shrieking tantrum, and several group owners, behaving like spooked ostriches, stuck their heads in the sand and peevishly demanded that nobody mention the fact that the place is very likely going down, down, down, and in fact had a Big Bad crash. 

Freedom of speech, I demand it!!! 

People who refuse to change and compromise when change and compromise is obviously needed, and pitch fits when there is eventually no other choice, were probably allowed to pinch their baby brothers when they were toddlers.

MeWe is a fast- rising social media company.  Maybe we should buy stock in it and Get Rich Quick?  But maybe it will go the way of MySpace, once the largest social networking site in the world, but now the 4,153^rd.

We got food at Amigos after church.  It’s not very good; let’s not go there again.  😝

Teddy called as we were leaving town.  His van – full of wife and kids – was stuck in the Super Saver parking lot.  It had been plowed, but there were several inches of packed snow still on the ground, and the van had warmed the snow, then settled right down into it, and refused to get back out. 

We went back to help, and Larry and Teddy tried rocking it from the rear while Amy steered and pressed the accelerator.  They were having trouble getting traction in their good church shoes, and that’s a big van.  We had nothing with which to pull the vehicle, either, “except my good belt,” said Larry.

Fortunately, Maria’s parents, Dwight and Mary, came along in their Escalade, and they had a strap strong enough for towing.  Dwight drove behind the van, looped the strap round Teddy’s hitch, and pulled him backwards with hardly any exertion on the part of the Escalade at all.

Remember our friend, Paul, who pulled Larry out of a drift a couple of days earlier?  Well, Paul and Dwight are brothers.  😃

Thursday afternoon, I picked up the grandchildren from school.  The rest of the day was spent appliquéing... and appliquéing... and appliquéing...  and visiting with Hannah for a little while, when she brought the children out to sled on the hills along Old Highway 81.  😊

One time when one of the girls was a wee little thing, about four years old, she had a bad cold.  Nobody else in the family was sick. 

“I don’t know where I got it,” she told my mother with a dramatic uplifting of palms.  She frowned thoughtfully.  Then, “I must have caught it from my dolly!” she concluded.

For supper that evening, we had baked orange roughy, with peppers and onions.  Mmmm...

By 11:00 p.m., I had only 20 more petals to go.  It took a few more hours, but I got it done.  Tight satin-stitching around ovals is time-consuming, even though I had that machine cranked up to top velocity through the majority of it.

The Schwan man came on Friday; the freezer is full of good things again.  The greatest part of my orders are usually vegetables, and sometimes chicken and fish – but I have to get a couple of boxes of frozen yogurt, too, or Larry might cry.    No other brand of frozen yogurt can hold a candle to Schwan’s. 

Larry came home for lunch, and we looked for tractor parts together.  Ha!  Actually, he looked for parts, and then I interpreted the £ for him when he discovered what he needed first in the U.K., and then in New Zealand.  Shall we go to New Zealand for tractor parts?  heh

Fortunately, there is an implement dealer in a nearby town that will be able to order the parts for him.

After Larry went back to work, I headed to Hobby Lobby for batting for the Baskets of Lilies quilt.  I chose medium-high loft, so the quilting will show up better, in king-size:  120” x 120”.  That’s barely big enough for this 115” x 115” quilt.

On the way home, I dropped off three bags of electronics, shoes, and decorations at the Goodwill.  That’s the first Goodwill drop-off of the year.  I keep all the receipts, and make sure I donate enough throughout the year to give us a decent tax return each spring. 

Home again, I trotted downstairs and found the fabric for the backing.  The fabric was plenty long, but only 110” wide, so I had to piece it.  I pressed the seams, and then began loading the quilt.  First the backing... then I turned on the machine and basted the batting to the backing.  Next, I basted the top to batting and backing both.  And so far, I loved my new Avanté, and the frame, too.  It’s soooo nice – much sturdier, and so easy to turn the bars.  The take-up bar has a handle on a big wheel, making it a whole lot easier on my hands.

I used to be tough!  But... when we got our leather loveseat, I said we didn’t need the one with the electric recliner; the manual one worked fine (and saved us $100).  Well, guess what?  I can’t make the thing recline!  Or if I do, then I’m reclined forever, and can’t get out.

Imagine me over there in the living room, all reclined, but kicking and flailing away, like a June bug that inadvertently landed upside down, and can’t right itself.  😆

A year or two ago, I pulled a big kitty litter box off the shelf in Wal-Mart, intending to put it into my cart – but once it was off the shelf, it went down, down, down, and the only thing I could do was slow its fall so it didn’t pop open and spread litter all over the aisle once it hit the floor.  I tried tipping it over onto the rack under the basket on the cart, but all I succeeded in doing was making the cart go shooting down the aisle, still empty.

I gave up, shoved that big box against the shelves out of the way, chose a smaller box, and chased down the cart.

I imagined Wal-Mart employees later looking at their security tapes, and dying with laughter over the spectacle I’d made.  Just doing my part to keep the locals jolly.  Me, who could lift 80-pound weights over my head when I was 16!

Here’s Teensy watching procedures from his vantage point on my cutting table.  More photos here and here.

Saturday, I started quilting.  Did y’all know that it is absolutely silly to get all panicked when your laser light isn’t working… when you haven’t even turned the machine on?!

I do the same thing with my camera.  The focus is not working! The shutter won’t depress!!!  Panic in the streets!  Run and scream!  Then... Oh. It’s off.  😆

Meanwhile, I’ve missed a National Geographic prize-winning shot. 🙄😖

Here’s Tiger taking it easy in the batting.

Let me assure all repeat and potential customers that the cats are not allowed to get on anybody else’s batting but my own.  If they head toward any batting I don’t want them near, I say, “Stay off!” and put up a hand like traffic cop.  They stop, regard me with a stare for a moment or two (to see if I mean business, you know), and when they determine that, yes, I do mean what I say, they reluctantly relocate.  And yes, you can train cats to do what you say, if you’re persistent, consistent, and reward them lavishly when they obey.

They can’t stay in the quilting studio when I’m not working in there, either; I bring them out and shut the door when I leave the room.  Don’t want some cat to think I’ve left him a personal hammock (the quilt area on the frame between the bars).

But... if you’re violently allergic to cats, then I’m not the quilter for you, because Tiger and Teensy do come into my quilting studio.

I have to tell Tiger to move when I’m ready to roll the quilt forward.  Otherwise... the quilt won’t roll!  He retired to one of the Thermabeds, after I displaced him.  This was dinky little Tabby’s bed, and, as you can see, it’s a tight fit for tubby ol’ Tiger.

I decided to use a pantograph instead of doing custom quilting.  It’ll be faster, and there are several customers waiting to send me their quilts.

The Avanté moves so smoothly and easily on the carriage, and the carriage moves so smoothly and easily on the frame tracks, I waaay ‘over-steered’ it for the first foot and a half or so.  I took a big curve to Chicago, and wound up in New York City.  😅

But I’m a-gettin’ bettah, ah yam.  😉

Before I was halfway through with the first row, I asked Larry to raise the quilting table two notches (each notch is about an inch).  My back was hurting!  

Now the table is right back where the tech put it in the first place – and where I thought it was too high.  Should’ve left it where the tech thought best!

My back feels much better, with the table higher.

Look what a bright, pretty screen the Avanté has.  There’s a screen at the back, too. 

By the time I was done with the second row and ready to roll the quilt forward again, Teensy was in the batting.

Okay, the verdict is in:

I really, really, REALLY like this machine.

The stitch regulator works wonderfully; it slows down and speeds up as quickly as I do.  

It slides like silk on the tracks.

I’m delighted with the way I can stop moving the machine, and the needle stops – and then when I want to quilt again, I just start moving the machine, and it immediately launches back into action.  I don’t have to constantly be pushing the start/stop button on the handle with my thumb.  Sometimes my thumb would be so sore after a long day of quilting, I could hardly hold a pen in my hand.

I’m using an 11”-wide pantograph, and the machine is not crowded for space between the bars; I have an extra 2”.  That’s enough to make a difference.  The pantograph is called ‘Rapture’.

It’s such a pleasure, to be able to make circles effortlessly.  With my other machine, I struggled to keep them from looking like round-cornered squares.

And, last but not least, it quilts faster!  I like fast.  The HQ16 was always beeping at me, because I was overrunning the stitch limit.

The lighting in my new quilting studio is better, too.  It’s better when I’m quilting... and it’s better when I turn some lights off in order to get pictures that properly show the quilting.

Verdict #2:

I really, really, REALLY like my new quilting studio.

Thank you, Larry!  More photos here.

For supper that night, we had tomato basil soup and grilled cheese on toasted 12-grain, along with apple-sauce and strawberry frozen yogurt with slivers of chocolate.

Sunday morning, my brother Loren called; he was feeling quite dizzy, and asked Larry to stay with him, as he was afraid he might fall.  Unusual, for him.  Larry took the blood pressure kit with him, and also his Samsung tablet so they could watch the morning church service online.  His blood pressure was slightly high, but not alarming.

I feel like a pelican in the wilderness and a sparrow alone on a housetop, going to church without Larry.  Plus, I was worried about Loren.  He’s been working very hard cutting and splitting wood, and a couple of days ago he mentioned getting a few logs off his trailer that were very heavy.  By afternoon, he was feeling a little better, well enough to stay by himself again, but not well enough to attend last night’s wedding. 

Our gift to the newlyweds was machine-embroidered tea towels.

When we got home, Larry rode his bike – on its CycleOps Magnus Trainer in the living room.  As I walked through, he paused pedaling long enough to offer me a ‘ride’, saying I could stand on the CycleOps frame. 

“You can rest your hands on my shoulders so you don’t fall off,” he told me gallantly.

“Haha!” I retorted.  “Someone would come to the door right then, see us through the window, and call the Funny Farm!”

Here is the staircase Jeremy is building in their new house.  The addition on their house, technically, though the addition is a lot bigger than the original part of the house.  This is walnut wood he milled, himself.

Jacob told me, “Mama and I both helped Daddy get that railing into place!  And it was heavy.” 

Today on his lunch hour, Larry split some wood for Loren.  He’ll have enough for a few days now.  This morning Loren went to the chiropractor, and he’s feeling a little better.

One time when my brother was the assistant pastor, between the time when my father passed away until my nephew was ready to take on the job, he started that saying, ‘Too many pots spoil the -------’ And then he paused, stymied, because he had no idea what the last word should be.

“Cooks,” supplied the song leader helpfully from the front row.

Loren looked at him, sensing something wasn’t right. “‘Cooks’,” he added tentatively, surprised then when everybody burst out laughing.

I don’t think he ever did figure out what had happened, or what in the world was so funny.

This afternoon, I sprayed some air freshener in the house.

Not long thereafter, I noted that certain areas of the floor where I’d sprayed were shiny.  Slippery, too.  It took a while before I realized... Oh.  I sprayed dusting spray, rather than room freshener.

This, because Wal-Mart slaps a big sticker on the sides of things they ship – and the sticker wound up right over the label:  FeBreze Swiffer Multi-Surface ... uh, something.  Can’t read it, and the label won’t peel off.  The can is exactly like the room freshener can.  Should be interesting, if someone, man or beast, decides to dash pell-mell around that corner over there.

The sky is suddenly full of Canada geese, flying low.  They like the cornfields around here, though right now those fields are covered with deep snow.  I wonder how they will get to the corn?

Larry got his W2 form today.  Guess what I’ll be doing soon?  Do I really have to interrupt the quilting on the Baskets of Lilies quilt for taxes???  Ugh.

Well, the sooner I start, the sooner I’ll be done.

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

Photos: Big Snow

And this is after it melted down a few inches:

Journal: Out With the Old (HQ16), in With the New (Avanté)

Male house finch

Some quilting friends were discussing ‘quilting fads’ the other day.  Some like ‘modern’ quilts; some like traditional quilts.  I pay little attention to fads, other than deciding whether or not I like the whatever-it-is (be it clothes or quilts or household colors).  I like what I like, and don’t really care whether it’s in fashion at the moment or not.

Do you ever think that some people do absolutely nothing else with their lives than surf the Internet for commentable (should be a word) articles, where they delight in posting insults and invectives, and creating rises and flaps?  I have sometimes noticed a name on a comment under one article... then spotted it under another --- taking exactly the opposite viewpoint from what they stated earlier.

I was looking at pictures of quilting recently in order to get some ideas as to how to quilt the Baskets of Lilies quilt and the Sunbonnet Sue quilt.  Sometimes I find quilting so exquisite, I can hardly believe someone did that with free-motion quilting.  After a bit, I tell myself, I can do that, too!  I stare at the designs... walk over to my quilt on the frame... set my jaw firmly (think ‘The Fearless Fosdick Face’)... and launch in.

Then I scowl and mutter, Design alternative!!! and keep going.  And when I think, I just can’t do that! – I go look at the old quilt on my bed, one of the first I ever did on my HQ16, and I realize, Oh.  I have improved.  And, Maybe I can keep on improving!

Before I do the next customer quilt, I intend to finish the appliqués and do the quilting on the Baskets of Lilies quilt, because I want to try out my new machine on a quilt of my own, rather than someone else’s.  It moves differently than the old machine, and if I’m going to make a mess, I don’t want to be doing it on a customer’s quilt.  I’m hoping it won’t take me too awfully long.  I’ve been of two minds whether to do custom quilting on it or a pantograph; I’m leaning strongly toward a fancy pantograph, in order to get it done quicker.

Last Monday evening, Larry took apart the 14-foot frame for the HQ16, and began shortening it to 10 feet.  We needed to ship it to a lady in Alabama, and her quilting room would only accommodate a 10-foot frame.  Larry numbered various pieces and I took pictures of everything, so the lady will know exactly how it all fits.

Larry thought he could round up appropriate-sized boxes at the shop and pack it all himself.  However, I thought we should take everything to the UPS Store and let them do it.  I called UPS, and learned that if they did it, insurance would not only cover possible loss, but also any damage.  If we did it, and the machine gets damaged, if UPS then inspects it and determines it wasn’t packaged well, we’d be out of luck.  I sent this message on to Larry, then called Loren for our usual afternoon chat. 

We generally chatter away with any relevant or new news, and that day wasn’t any exception.  Loren immediately thought he needed to bring me a giant roll of bubble wrap to help Larry pack everything.  😆

Loren is 79 years old.  And it was only 2° F, with a wind chill of -16°!

Menfolk.  Tsk.

I convinced him to stay put in his warm house until we decided how we were going to go about the operation.

Larry finally got my message, and, amazingly enough, made agreeable noises.  (Well, as much as he could, in a text.)  About taking the stuff to UPS and letting them do the packing, that is.  Whataya bet he searched all over the shop and couldn’t find any boxes the right size, hmmm?

My Word program now puts in ‘Alternative Text’ for pictures.  If a picture is taking a while to download, people will see this ‘Alternative Text’.  You can type in whatever you want it to say... or just let the program label photos on its own.

In last week’s picture of baby Carolyn, the text reads, “A small child is holding a baby.”  The silly program thinks the highchair, with a panda face incorporated into the seat back, is ‘a small child’!

Because Larry used the galvanized steel poles he bought from Menards when he extended the frame, and there are no joints in the pipes, it’s much sturdier than the originals.  With my 14’ frame, there were joints, and that made it sag a bit.  These 10-footers hardly swayed at all; it was quite sturdy.  The lady will be happy with the frame, I think.

I looked it over when Larry was through and ready to take it apart again for shipping, and said, “It’s better than it was for me!  I’m jealous.”

He laughed and pointed upwards.  “You have an even better one than this, just two flights up.”  😊

It’s a good thing we didn’t have to send her the original poles, because one got pressed into service as part of the tower that held our Internet dish waaaay up over our house. 

Larry had to drill out the little holes for the, uh... ? push pins? that hold the poles in the frames.  He needed to sand the ends of the poles a bit, because they were slightly too big to fit into the brackets at the ends of the frame.  The steel sander was at the shop, so he would do that the next morning.  He also needed to rethread the thread guide post.  And I needed to dust everything one more time, too.

I cleaned out my tool caddy and decided to send it along with the machine, as I have enough drawer space upstairs for my tools.  Also, I sent the lady my TOWA bobbin tension gauge.  I hardly used it, and it would help make up for the fact that I’m not sending her my bobbin winder, as my Avanté didn’t come with one.

Larry originally planned to send the 10’ double folding tables with the particle board bolted atop them and the Railz (tracks) left in place, to make it easier for the lady to set everything back up again. 

Tuesday, Larry came home at noon with the proper tools to sand the ends of the quilting-frame poles to make them fit into the holes in the brackets.

In describing my frame, I mentioned a ‘dead bar’ or ‘idler bar’, and several people wondered what that is. 

Here’s a good shot of a frame:

If we label the bars from near to far 1 through 4, then it goes like this:

1.    Backing bar

2.    Top bar

3.    Dead (or idler) bar (the one with no leader)

4.    Take-up bar

The dead bar (also called idler bar) is to keep the quilt level as it travels from the front bars to the take-up bar.

That day, Bobby took Hannah to the doctor, quite sick with a sinus infection and asthma.  She’s not been well since last June, and the doctor hadn’t treated her aggressively enough to ever get her over it.  But the doctor she saw Tuesday prescribed a stronger prescription for her, which she is to take for a longer period of time.  They went to pick it up – and it was $385!!  Walgreens called the clinic to find out if there wasn’t something else she could take that wouldn’t be so expensive.  Fortunately, there was, and it was ‘only’ $80.

By evening, after just one giant antibiotic tablet and prednisone, and she was already feeling better.  I’ve been so worried about her.  I do hope she can get well again soon.

That evening, Amy and Emma brought the Olympus camera that had been Janice’s.  Amy had bought a new battery for it, stuck it into the camera – and discovered there were 371 pictures on it that Janice had taken, some not more than a couple of months before she passed away.  I downloaded the pictures to one of my external hard drives.  There are pictures of Teddy and Amy’s house in the making and moving; I’ll put those on a thumb drive and give it to them.  And I’ll have Clark Color Labs print all of the photos, and put them into an album for Loren.

That night, Larry built a wooden crate for the HQ16 to fit into perfectly, with enough room for the table brackets, the tool caddy, and the carriage.  The poles and tracks would go together in another package, and the tables in another.  I put the manual and small items such as Alan wrenches, needles, bobbins, side clamps, the thread guide post, the laser light, stylus, and some pantographs into a box and taped it shut.  Everything was ready to go.

Or so we thought.

The other day, a friend wanted to know how I came up with all our children’s names.

I had a good baby-name book.  I chose all the names I liked best... eliminated the ones whose meanings I didn’t like... and wound up with a list of about ten boys’ names and ten girls’ names every time.  I never had trouble finding names I liked, or choosing my favorite out of the mix. 

I’d make a long list and show it to Larry.  He was always, always perfectly agreeable with my list, and even the order I had them in according to best liked, middle names and all.  I wondered... Does he really agree with these names? 

So one time I made a list of names that I didn’t like.  Nothing farfetched, nothing that would’ve clued him in to the scheme.  Normal names, nothing wrong with them – but I didn’t like them, at least not for our baby.

I handed him the list.  “Do you like these all right?”

He read through them. 

He reread them.

Then, in a slightly hesitant voice, as if he didn’t want to hurt my feelings, “Do you have any others?”

I was totally delighted:  He DID have an opinion about baby names, and he DID know what names he liked, and we were in agreement!  I didn’t worry about it anymore.  We liked the same types of names.  He depended on me to make lists... show them to him... and now I knew he would let me know, if he didn’t like the names.  😊

My maiden name is Swiney.  My father always told people with a laugh, “Rhymes with ‘money’!”  A lot of people pronounce it ‘Sweeny’.  Even some of our relatives back in Illinois say it that way.  My ancestors came from Ireland, where we are related to every last Swiney, Sweeny, Sweeney, Sweney, Swinny, Swinney, McSwiney, McSweeny, McSweeney, McSweney, McSwinny, McSwinney (and every other derivation you can dream up) on the entire Isle of Eyre. 

My uncle, who went there to track down information for our genealogy, said he could walk into some of the small villages and call out, “Swiney!” – and every head in the village would pop out of the cottage doors.  hee hee

At noon on Wednesday, it was 23° – warmest it had been in days.  Teddy came to help Larry load the HQ16 in the crate and the frame/table into a flatbed pickup that he borrowed from Walkers.  I fretted about that machine, the tables, and the poles resting there on that flatbed, but Larry strapped everything down well, and headed for the UPS Store.

“Now, if we just won’t go broke paying for shipping, and if that machine can travel safely 1,100 miles to Spanish Fort, Alabama, I’ll be happy as a turtle on a conveyor belt!” I said.

An hour later, Larry called.  “Are you sitting down?” he asked.

The estimated price for shipping was about $650.

In my ad, I’d said we would pay half the shipping, and the buyer would pay the other half.  But we certainly hadn’t expected it to be that much!

I called the lady and offered her some options:  1) we could keep the tables and the board top and let her find some that would work for the brackets and bars, 2) ship as it was, at $325 for each of us, or 3) pay us the entire $650, and we would take it to her and set it up, too.  She thought about it, and decided to just have us send the whole works.  “After all,” she told me, “Fifteen years ago when I shipped all my furniture from Kentucky to Alabama, it was $7,000!” – meaning, this didn’t seem too awfully outrageous to her.

Larry, in the meantime, had decided to take the board off the tables and cut it, so they could be stacked, rather than end to end.  He bought some bolts, drilled holes in the proper spots for the overlap, and then headed back to the UPS Store.

We were relieved to learn that this cut the price of shipping a lot:  the price dropped to $425.16 – $212.58 for each of us.

You know, I allllmost wrote ‘local buyers only’ in my ad, but then I remembered how very, very happy I was when I found the HQ16 in the first place – in New Jersey.  And the lady was willing to ship it to me.  She only sent the machine, though, not the whole table.

That afternoon I posted some pictures:

Birds at the Feeder on a Snowy Day

I hung several pictures and decorations in my quilting studio, and then it was time to get ready for our midweek church service.

Kurt and Victoria invited us over afterwards.  Kurt had shot a deer Tuesday, and they cut the meat up themselves.  Victoria had cooked a roast in her crockpot (the one we gave them for Christmas), along with potatoes and carrots, and they shared some of it with us.  They gave us a piece of deer loin, too, for Larry to smoke in the Traeger grill.

While we were there, Andrew and Hester stopped by to tell Kurt and Victoria the news they had told us at Christmas time, and which is now ‘officially declassified’, as Andrew said, laughing:  a new baby is on the way!  You can’t imagine how happy we all are over this news.

I took more photos in my quilting studio Thursday:  Quilting Studio

That afternoon, I set up a new email account and a Facebook page for a friend, plowed my way through some computer work, and then did some housework.

One of my quilting friends, upon seeing this picture, wrote, “Wow!  That big room sure shrank fast!  Looks like a wonderful place to play.”

Didn’t it, though!  Shrink, I mean, with that machine and frame installed.  But there’s plenty of room for what I need to do in there, and I like it.  Plus, I have my little office back... I have a gift-wrapping room... and now there is that big area at the front of the walkout basement that is empty of the HQ16 and the 14’ frame.  I need to hurry up and get it organdized (à la Winnie-the-Pooh) before Larry decides to overhaul a tractor or rebuild a forklift in there, or something!

I’m really, really happy (and still surprised) with this machine Larry got for me; but you know I had been sneaking surreptitious glances at those big machines – the 26” Fusions and Infinities! (that are of course way out of our budget).

The nice dealer and HQ tech who sold us the machine and set it up for me assured us that this machine was just my size, and I am probably a little too small to cope with the reach of those big machines.  I wanted to bluster, “I’m not too small to cope with anything!!!” – but... he might be right.  😉

Friday, it got up to 49°.  It was bright and sunny, and the squirrels were out and about.  I could hear them chattering and scolding somethin’ fierce – which meant Teensy must’ve been out and about, too.  😨😲😬

Loren spent five hours that morning cutting wood at a friend’s property north of town, and several hours the day before.  I worry about him, cutting and splitting wood by himself here and there, and so was glad to hear that our friend went out in the woods and helped him Friday, the whole while he was there.  We have good friends.

By late afternoon, I was finally able to work in my quilting studio!  The third load of clothes was in the washing machine, the second load was in the dryer... and the nice thing is, from way upstairs I can’t hear either one of those machines when they buzz or play their cute little ‘I’m done!’ chimes, so they won’t bother me at all, at all!  haha!

...

...

...

Okay, okay, I admit it.  I set an alarm so I wouldn’t forget.  🙄😏  All I have to do is say, “Hey, Cortana, set a timer for 88 minutes!” and the helpful woman inside my laptop announces sweetly, “Okay.  I have set am alarm for 6:30 p.m.”  Wheeee, doggies!  (in a Jedd Clampett tone)  (I do prefer to fold clothes before they get all wrinkled, and besides, folding nice warm, clean-smelling clothes is just... nice.)

On my cutting table sat my laptop and two external hard drives, and the data from my laptop – almost one terabyte – was flowing into externals.  Gotta keep all my A-One, Top-Notch, First-Rate, High-Class Stuff and Things, Jetsam and Flotsam, backed up!  Twice.  That stuff includes journals from the early 1990s to today, photos from 1999 ’til now, music (about 5,000? songs), patterns, recipes, financial stuff in Excel, saved emails, and a gazillion other things.  My life is on a computer chip!  heh

That done, I was finally working on Todd and Dorcas’s Baskets of Lilies quilt again!  Most of the petals in the borders needed to be appliquéd, using a satin stitch.  And then I can quilt it.

I uploaded some pictures:

Teensy in Thermabed, Teensy in Box, and Lazy Daze, Teensy & Tiger

And these are from a week ago Friday, when I met my customer and friend, Carol, in Fremont:  Meeting at Milady Coffeehouse

In case it’s been so long since I worked on Dorcas’ quilt that you’ve forgotten what it looks like, here are the last pictures I took of it: 

Baskets of Lilies Quilt Top Together

Appliquéd Petals

Carolina Lily Blocks

Did you know you can put chips in a quilt with all the information on a label, and a chip reader could then read it?  You could even put a tracking chip into a quilt before entering it in a quilt show.  And yes, the label chip is waterproof; the quilt can be washed.

That evening, my mother-in-law Norma called to tell me that her brother, Larry’s Uncle Clyde, had passed away.  We’re sad to lose him, but glad he’s no longer suffering.  And we know we’ll see him again one day in heaven.  He did not seem to suffer much, for which we are grateful.  Uncle Clyde’s (and his late wife Aunt Joanne’s) children have been my good friends since we were small children.  And their children and our children are good friends.  Clyde and Joanne were the first couple my father married after becoming a minister in 1953.

As I worked on Dorcas’ quilt, I was glad for the quilting gloves (open at the fingertips, with rubbery bits all over them) my late sister-in-law Janice gave me.  It’s hard work to turn and twist such a big quilt around smoothly, doing a satin stitch around ovals!

Larry brought home a light with the three LED swiveling lamps, and put it up for me, effectively evicting me from my table and sewing machine for a while.  Mind you, I wasn’t complaining.  It was too dark in that corner!

Earlier, he smoked chicken breasts in the Traeger grill.  Yum, that thing turns out mighty good-tasting meat.  We also had corn and 12-grain bread and blueberry applesauce.

My nephew Kelvin had surgery for colon cancer that day.  His daughter told us that it went okay, but not as well as they were hoping.  There was a lot of scar tissue, but the doctor said he got everything he could see.  “I’m glad the surgery’s over and now Dad can heal,” she said.

Saturday morning, Victoria sent me a picture of a simple baby dress she saw online – and it was $75!  It wouldn’t cost much more than $5 to make, depending on the fabric, of course.  She wants to sew it, so I pulled some patterns out of my file for her.

Kurt, Victoria, and Baby Carolyn went to a car show in Omaha that day.  Victoria posted a picture on Instagram:  Kurt and Victoria are grinning cheerily at the camera.  Carolyn, lower right, is grimacing as if to say, “Oh, brother, here we go again.  Tsk.  Parents!”  Every time I look at that picture, I laugh.

Victoria told us that the lady who owns a boutique called Lavender Thyme in Pioneer Plaza uptown is paying her $20 each for four crocheted bonnets.  The same lady is buying some adorable little outfits that Lydia has been making, too.  Nice to have a local place to sell their crafts, and at a good price, to boot!

Victoria is calling her new little business ‘Knots & Bobbles’.  She’s on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/knots_and_bobbles/. 

Lydia has an Instagram account, too:  https://www.instagram.com/chicbabyboutiqueshop/ and an Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChicBabyBoutiqueShop.  Looks like she’s all sold out at the moment. 

Victoria found the cutest little wooden ‘buttons’ on Amazon, and had them engraved with the name, Knots & Bobbles.  She attaches one to each thing she makes, on the outside as part of the design.  Quite cute.

Somebody asked if the little screw that fell out of my bobbin case the first of December had shown up when we moved the HQ16 and frame.  No, it didn’t, and I forgot to look for it in the hubbub of trying to get that big machine and frame apart and ready for shipping.  But this made me curious, so I went downstairs to have another look.  I used a big, strong, flat magnet all across the carpeted floor. 

I came up with a ladybug.  😆

Not because he was magnetic, but because he was alive, and grabbed onto the magnet as it went over him.  It doesn’t matter anymore, really, as that machine is already in Memphis, Tennessee, on its way to Spanish Fort, Alabama, and the bobbin case in my Avanté is newer and tighter, including the tension screw.  If I lose another one, well, ... I’ll just have to rush back to Fremont for a replacement.  😉

The HQ16 and frame is scheduled to arrive at the purchaser’s house tomorrow.  The combined weight of everything we shipped was 213 pounds.

I need to bring my sewing machine thread upstairs to my quilting studio.  Now, I know it is not recommended to have thread on racks right out in the open, and especially anyplace where the sun might shine on them.  But... I’ve had these big wooden racks for many years, and ... they’re just so handy!  They were never in the sun, and I use up thread fast, so I never worried about it.  But this new quilting studio is absolutely full of sunshine, all day long.  The perfect wall for the racks is exactly right in the sunlight.  I’d better hang a picture there fast, before I give in and put those thread racks there, right?  There are blinds that I could pull, but I don’t want to pull them.  I like the sunshine.

I even have a new thread rack that I’ve never used – it’s dark wood and shaped like a turtle.  Cute as all get-out.  I found it at a Salvation Army somewhere, and it needs three more little dowels.

Maybe I could just go hang all my thread racks in my little office across the hall, where there are no windows?  That’s where they used to be, when we first moved out here, and my office/sewing room was all together in that one little room.

A friend sent this link: 

When Knitting Was A Patriotic Duty

I enjoyed reading the stories and seeing the vintage pictures of people knitting for the soldiers, in the early part of the 1900s.  It’s hard for us to imagine just how much suffering our young soldiers endured in so many ways, from our relative ease today, isn’t it?  It was because of their willingness to suffer for God and country that we have the freedom and comforts we do.  I’m glad these articles have been converted to digital archives.

Speaking of boys knitting and crocheting... I have a story!  ((raising hand))

Here it is, from an old journal of mine:

At our house, the boys have done crafts now and then – why, Keith and Teddy even learned to crochet.  Keith crocheted a baby blanket for one of his cousin’s new babies when he was about ten.  It was quite a lot like Dr. Seuss’ ‘thneed’ that wouldn’t quit stretching.  Remember The Lorax?

Dorcas knitted one on that order for her nephew Aaron when he was born.  It was glistening white and lovely, but it was large and heavy, and strrrrrretchy.  Bobby said that once upon a time he got the baby out of his crib, took that blanket off the top shelf of the closet, wrapped the baby in it, and walked out to the kitchen.  He made it all the way to the counter before he heard THUDDDD!!! – the rest of the ‘thneed’ had finally fallen off the closet shelf.

Keith next crocheted a scarf for my sister Lura Kay, though it more nearly resembled a necktie, the way it was so wide on one end and so narrow on the other.  He never could get those corners down pat. 

Teddy put his crocheting to good use.  He made a loooong chain… then, late one night, he tied one end to a downstairs door handle… fastened part of it to a hanger on which he carefully perched a large teddy bear, wrapped it around the upstairs door handle, then brought it back down and affixed it to a pulley.  He held the end… and waited.

After some time, Hannah came sleepily through the kitchen, her completed homework in hand.  She reached for the handle on the door to the steps…pulled the door open ---

--- and up popped a big teddy bear, arms and legs flapping with the momentum.  It stared her straight in the face, then bobbed abruptly downwards, bouncing merrily on each step as it descended to the bottom.

Hannah screamed and ran in midair about two feet off the floor.  Teddy, Keith, and Joseph, lurking downstairs in the hallway, laughed so hard they each sat limply down, one after the other, plop, plop, plop.  They laughed so hard they woke up Dorcas, and that’s hard to do.

Ah, yes, we like crafts!  😅 

The boys liked wood burning… and Teddy liked to put miniature furniture together.  But I must say, they all liked football and scooters and motorcycles better.  😃

I went to practice the piano a few minutes ago ---- and discovered a partially digested, upchucked bird of unknown denomination deposited squarely where my foot needs to go in order to use the sustain pedal.  AAAARRRRGGGHHH.

Let me rephrase that:

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

I got that all cleaned up, and then the microwave went off, and I never did get the piano practiced.  Until later, that is. 

I headed upstairs, and set to appliquéing petals with a vengeance – until I had to take time out for a few shots of a male downy woodpecker and a house finch in the locust tree just outside my window.

Saturday night, Larry got the rest of the lights up in my quilting studio.  Pass the sunglasses!

It’s bright in there now.  Very nice.

More pictures here.

I got more than 2/3 of the petals appliquéd on the borders of the Baskets of Lilies that night.  I should be loading that thing on the frame soon! – in a couple of days, I expect.  I’ve pretty well decided that I’m going to use a favorite pantograph on it, as opposed to custom quilting.  I have customer quilts waiting, and more are piling up right along.  Gotta hurry... gotta hurry.

People are coming out of the woodwork, wanting me to do quilting.  I wanted to do a whole lot of my own stuff this year!  But... we can use the money, especially right now when Larry doesn’t get as many hours, on account of the weather.  Sooo... I’m not turning anybody down.  I did tell them I want to finish Dorcas’ quilt first, because I want to get a ‘feel’ for my new machine on my own quilt, rather than a customer’s quilt.

I suppose, if I don’t want so much quilting, I should quit posting photos in so many places online that upwards of 30,000 people are seeing them??

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the weather announcers steadily upped the possible amounts of snow we were expecting.  First it was 4-8”... then 6-12”... then up to 15”... and eventually, they said some areas would receive 18”, and that’s about what we got, out here.  They predicted 30-40 mph winds, then kept increasing that prediction, too.  So we weren’t surprised when they upgraded the Winter Storm Warning to a Blizzard Warning.  “Extremely dangerous,” they kept saying.

Why do I always feel gleeful, the worse the predicted storm??  ’Course, I don’t want anyone to be in danger, but... well, I can’t help it.  I love big storms!  Especially big snowstorms.  They’re just so... stormy, you know.  And snowy!

Someone suggested that Larry build cupboards for my thread racks to sit inside.  Yes, that’s a good idea... but...  We have a problem, Houston.  Larry would nevah, evah, find the time.  Not for another 30 years, anyway.  There’s no issue yet, though, because, first, he didn’t even have enough steam to put up the cord concealer kits he bought; and second, when I mentioned that I needed my thread racks, he queried, “You mean, you need them taken off the wall downstairs, brought upstairs, and fastened to the wall up here??” and when I said ‘yes’, he looked at me, sighed, and promptly fell asleep in the non-reclining chair he was sitting in.

I could just put those spools in a flat plastic bin made especially for spools of thread.  My poor, overworked husband would be glad.

“Do you not attach things to walls yourself, Sarah Lynn??” asked another friend.

Yep, I hung most everything that’s hanging in our house myself.  But the thread racks are put up with heavy-duty screws that are tight enough I can’t budge them.  I’m even the one who put those screws in! – but that was quite a few years ago, and my hands were tougher then than they are now.  I’ll need one of Larry’s cordless screwdrivers for the job, and I did not want to use the one he was using, as it had grease on it, and I was working on Dorcas’ very white quilt.  Also, those thick wooden racks are quite heavy, and I’m not so sure I could keep a grip on them once the screws are out of the wall.  Still, if he’d rummage up a nice, clean cordless screwdriver for me, I’d sure give it a try.  I used to be tough, before rheumatoid arthritis reared its ugly head! 

***

Okay, I just asked Larry where his clean cordless screwdriver is, and he informed me that he is going to take those racks down, because if I do it, they’ll fall off the wall and land on my foot and rebreak all the toes I recently broke.  😆 

Sunday afternoon, Yahoo Groups (including the quilting groups, doll clothes groups, HandiQuilters’ group, craft-selling groups, and a few others to which I belong) had a massive crash.  Emails were still going through, by some strange phenomenon, but homepages were totally inaccessible.

I did what Larry sometimes does in the face of troublesome obstacles and dilemmas:  I took a nap.

By 5:30 p.m., it was drizzling out, and meteorologists predicted it would be snowing by midnight.  Why do the cats think they need to go outside at such times, and why do two medium-to-large-sized damp cats smell like five large, wet Saint Bernards??!

I had three weather apps up at the same time, comparing them.  Larry, meanwhile, was looking at a couple on his phone.  Every time he started reading one to me, I quickly hauled up an app and read it with him, in unison.  hee hee  Made Teensy turn his head around backwards and stare at us.  😹

After church, we ate a late supper, and then Larry went to the shop to finish putting the bucket on his four-wheel-drive tractor.  He worked on it for several hours Saturday; he had to make brackets and drill holes to make it fit the tractor, and run lines to connect the hydraulics.  And that’s an extremely simplified explanation from someone who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

The weather announcers kept pushing back the time of the beginning snowfall, as the storm was moving a little slower than anticipated, which also meant it was dropping more snow than expected in many areas.  At a quarter after 1:00 a.m., AccuWeather said it would start snowing in 45 minutes.  At 2:00 a.m., they said it would start in an hour.

That time, they were right.  At 3:00 a.m., that blizzard came on with a fury.

Meanwhile, Yahoo Groups was still down.  I checked on http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/groups.yahoo.com.html, and it said it was up, but there were many comments from people who could not get to their groups.  For a while I wondered if they were doing a monumental rebooting of all their servers.  Or maybe a stork flew into an overhead Cat 5 line somewhere and discombobulated the works.  Or perhaps the carrier pigeons were downed by strong Santa Ana winds? 

Quilling and bluebird from Hannah

On one of the Yahoo help forums, it said that they no longer support Groups, and have no techs actively working on them.  (Yeah, I think we can tell that.)  There is no one in the company who answers questions or responds to comments concerning the Groups.  (Yeah, we noticed that, too.)

When it was still out of commission at midnight, I decided, as an owner of a quilting group, it was high time I got in gear and did something about it.

So... I created a group called Quilt Talk on a website called MeWe, and invited all the members of my Yahoo quilting group to join.

By midmorning today, a lot of roads had been closed on account of the snow and high winds, and there was no sign of a letup anytime soon.  We already had over a foot of snow, with a lot of drifting.  I went out to fill the bird feeders, and snow was tumbling into the tops of my boots.

I came back inside, started blow-drying my hair, — and the blow-dryer bit the dust.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to get all spiffed up and go anywhere; my hair could dry on its own.  

Wouldn’t you know, Yahoo Groups came struggling back to life again in the early morning hours.  However, some groups are still on ‘life support’, and the whole system may very well kick the bucket again.  Many groups have been experiencing odd glitches and have been unable to post photos or files for a good two months.  We decided to stay with MeWe.  (Why must they call things by such goofy names?!  Couldn’t they have named it something pretty, like, oh, say, ToweringMountains, or RipplingCreek, or FluffyKitten, or something??)

This ‘Flying Free’ painting of eagles was from Andrew and Hester; it’s now hanging in my quilting studio.

I called my brother this afternoon at the usual time.  He didn’t answer.  I tried his cell phone.  No answer.  I thought about that for a moment or two, decided it was a very good day to worry about him, and called Larry at the shop.  “Could you go see if Loren is all right?”

“He’s probably just outside in his John Deere with the heated cab, pushing snow,” he told me.

Yes, I knew that.  But... “Can you go make sure?”

He assured me that he would.

Some time later, he called to tell me, “Your brother is just fine!  He’s out in his tractor moving snow, and didn’t have his cell phone with him.”

That man.  As my sister said to me the other day (in front of Loren himself), “When do you suppose we should tell him he’s 79 years old?”

I answered, “Well, I’ve mentioned it now and again, but he doesn’t listen!”

He was laughing, of course.

While Larry was out, he checked on his mother, who hasn’t been feeling very well, and scooped her front walk.  Kenny would later clear the driveway for her.

On the way back to the shop, the wind gusted strongly, creating a blinding whiteout, and Larry, taking a curve to get onto the highway, went through a tall drift that hadn’t been there the last time he’d taken that corner.  He got stuck.  He was in the Touareg, and it has four-wheel-drive.  He put it in four-low.  He even pushed the switch to lock in all four tires. 

Nothing did any good, though, because he was high-centered.

The Touareg is only a medium-sized SUV, and this snow is calling for big SUVs.

Along came a friend, Paul Tucker, in his four-wheel-drive pickup. 

“Need a pull?” he asked.

He had Larry out of that drift in nothing flat.

After a pause in intensity, the storm picked up steam, and soon the snow was coming down hard again.  Teensy kept asking me to turn it off, pôr fąvör, and thankee kindly.

Snow fell at one to three inches per hour the rest of the afternoon, and the wind was blowing at 50 mph with gusts as high as 65 mph.  More roads were closed.

I called our local florist to order flowers from our family for Uncle Clyde’s funeral tomorrow.  The lady told me that florists here in town couldn’t get their fresh flowers today on account of the blizzard, and they are running out.  So I asked for all sorts of dried plumes and pods, ferns and long leaves, maybe some feathers mixed with the flowers; that should be pretty.  Did y’all know flower arrangements are pricey?! 

This bluebird painted on wood was from Bobby and Hannah; the needlepoint sachet was made by my friend Ann.  I hung it near the wall arrangement with the bluebird on the shelf.

I paid some bills, then popped a venison roast and seasoned baby bakers into the oven.  What I wouldn’t give for some carrots!  Oh, well.  We’ll add peach yogurt and orange juice to the menu, and maybe the orange colors will fool our brains into imagining that we had carrots.  😃

I wonder if the wind howling at my window is in minor or major scales?  It’s calmed down to a breezy 45 mph now.  Teddy and Amy are totally snowed in.  Larry is going to take his tractor over there in the morning to clear the snow.  His pickup, with a long flatbed trailer hitched to it, is stranded in our sloped drive; it’s still missing the driveshaft he removed on our jaunt to Colorado when that, uh, U-joint thangamajiggertyjig went kabonkers.  (Simple technical mechanical terms for those who don’t understand mechanical semantics.)  Fortunately, the Jeep was parked behind the pickup and flatbed, so at least it’s not stranded, though I didn’t try to brave the storm to go to visitation for Uncle Clyde tonight at the church.

Larry finally got home, minutes after I sent him a text to find out if he was still all in one piece, or stuck in another snowdrift someplace.  He walks in, makes a huge mud lolly on the kitchen floor — and then sheepishly explains that there was ‘moisture’ on his boots.

He did have the good grace to mop up after himself, though he had to do it twice, as he forgot to remove his boots the first time around.  😆

Well, I’d better get busy on the next item on my To-Do List.  I work my way through my lists from top to bottom, and new things get added only at the bottom, usually.  So, as Barney Fife once said, “When I say I’m going to do something, I’ll do it!” 

((...pause...)) 

It might be ten years from now, but I’ll do it. 

Now... could somebody please come and clear up the mess we made in the basement, getting that machine and table out, so I can sew in peace up here in my pretty new quilting studio??

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