Journal: Quilting, Quilting, Quilting; and a Baby Smiles

You know how sometimes people ‘paint themselves into a corner’?  Well, I’m good at quilting myself into a corner.  When it happens, or when I see that it’s about to happen, it makes me give the handles on my machine a fretful jerk, and there we are then, with a big ol’ ugly spot glaring at us. 

But with my new machine, the stitch regulator is so much better, I’ve discovered I can abruptly come to a complete stop without any ‘stitching in place’, like my older HQ16 used to do (the new 16s are better), and debate the issue before proceeding.

A quilting friend was asking for advice on free-motion quilting.  One of the best pieces of advice someone gave me a few years ago was to grab pencil and paper and start sketching designs.  If you can draw it, you can quilt it.

“But I can’t draw!” my friend lamented.

I can’t draw, either.  I’m the child whose parents had to go look at the drawings on other parents’ refrigerators to see what on earth their child had brought home from school.  Then they could say, “Oh, honey, what a nice giraffe you drew!”  (They’d originally thought it was a pig, but knew better than to hazard a guess.) 

But!  I’m a lot better than I used to be, and if I have a picture to look at, I can actually make something recognizable.

Several people want to know what I told the woman who offered me first $100 and then $200 for the Americana Eagle quilt.

I informed her that I had had a quilt of similar size and effort appraised, and it was valued at $4,500.  However, I would not sell it for less than $10,000 – and probably not even that.

I got a standing ovation (electronically) from a few people.  But the woman who’d made the offer never resurfaced.

One time several years ago, someone on a photography forum got all up in High Dudgeon over a price I quoted on a quilt (it wasn’t really for sale; but ... if the price is right... ).  She had offered me $500 on a quilt that was appraised at $9,500.

I responded, “Best to learn to make it yourself, if you aren’t willing to pay appropriately for the labor and materials.”

She retorted, all in a snit, “I don’t make jelly, but I don’t expect to pay $100 per jar for it at the store!”

Now, that was an opening I cannot possibly be blamed for walking through.  Why, that’s practically... bait!

I pounced.  “May I then suggest you spread your bed with jelly.”

I got more LOLs over that goofy, inane remark than over anything else I ever wrote on that forum, I do believe.

Lydia sent a picture of Malinda, walking.  Have you ever noticed that when babies start to walk, they curl their toes to help them hang onto the floor, like little birdies trying to hang onto a branch?

Lydia remarked, “Her feet are so tiny!  I feel like she doesn’t have a sure foundation.”

Babies need little duckling flappers!  😊  Malinda wears about a 3.  4-5 is average for a one-year-old, according to most size charts.  She’s a little thing!  Gets it from both sides of the family, I guess.

A friend was telling me that her six-year-old granddaughter recently lost her first tooth.  She immediately wrote a note to the tooth fairy:  “Dear tooth fairy:  Please give my tooth back.  I want it.  Love, Sage”    hee hee 

Can you see a difference in the tenor of these two comments I received on Facebook, regarding the Americana Eagle quilt lying on the twin bed upstairs?  The first is from a lady who’s been an online quilting friend for many years:

“Looks perfect.  Do you ever worry about the light from windows fading your quilts?  I had some fabric in a basket by a window and was sad when I opened it up and it had fade marks.  Now I’m worried to actually use my quilts in a bright room.  Seems so silly because I want to use them.  ”

This next is from a lady that I don’t know from Adam (or from Eve, for that matter):

“You need to be aware that direct light is the worst possible place to display a quilt.  Sun will start to fade the BEST QUALITY fabric within 22 hours.  If you want it on this bed, pull the shade and expose it to daylight only while it is being looked at.  Why have the sun fade it 12 hours a day and observe it for 5 minutes out of that day.  It doesn’t even have to be direct sunlight -- daylight even fades it!  I have the shades pulled in my bedrooms, and the quilt only sees sunlight during the few moments it is being shown to someone.  Sun damage is forever and so easy to prevent.”

Some people can be so abrasive!  She might as well have said, “Wad that quilt up and throw it in a dark corner of your basement, you stupid oaf!”

Yes, I probably take everything too personal.... but I looked up other comments she’d made, and I see she’s in the habit of being downright rude, time and again.  I wonder if she has the slightest notion why everyone she talks to goes away scowling?  (snerk)

The ladies on my little quilting group are so nice, by comparison!

I do have the shades pulled most of the way down in the little library where I have the quilt on that twin bed.  It’s a north-facing room, and no direct sunlight ever hits the bed.  I don’t want the quilt to fade, even from indirect light.

But I needn’t be whacked with a ball bat to make me consider the issue.

Larry likes his quilt.  He really liked it when I started on the eagle itself – but then when I appliquéd it to the background and it ‘blended in’ too much, I could tell he was disappointed.  When I began applying Inktense pencils to the background, he hardly said a thing, and I’m pretty sure he thought, Oh me, oh my, she’s done ruint it.  He very carefully suggested that I might be able to ‘sew other material around it’.  😄

But now he really, really likes it.  Last Monday night he made some comment about ‘when it’s officially mine’, and I asked, “What has to be done for you to consider it ‘officially yours’?”

“Finish sewing the label on it!” he said.

He was right; I still had to sew the label on.  I got that done Tuesday.

I like to listen to audio books while I’m sewing.  Recently, I’ve been listening to the Bible on BibleGateway.com.  I’m on Numbers 11 now.  It’s been a while since I’ve read or listened to the Bible straight the way through.  It’s always a blessing... always enlightening... and I always take note of something I didn’t, the other times.  Depends on what’s going on in life at the moment, what one particularly pays attention to!  I do so love these old, yet ever new, Old Testament stories.  We have a wonderful, awe-inspiring God.  “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, the things the Lord hath prepared for them that love Him,” I Corinthians 2:9.

After my diatribe last week concerning TV, a friend told about a man who, years ago,  decided he could outdraw Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke.  Shot a hole right through the screen.

That made me think of something my father once said:  “If his brains were made out of rubber, it wouldn’t be enough to make a mosquito a pair of boots.”

I was quite small, and I thought that was one of the funniest things I’d ever heard.  One of the things that struck me so funny was that a mosquito would need three pairs of boots, not just one.  (Remember, I was a wee little kiddo.  Little kiddos’ brains go in funny directions.)  >>pause<<  (Actually, my brain still goes in funny directions.)

Daddy had so many sayings, he was still coming up with some I’d never heard of, right up until the day he died.

Tuesday afternoon, I went to Hobby Lobby for batting for my customer’s quilts.  I found queen-sized Hobbs Heirloom Premium wool batting at a good price – and I had a 40%-off coupon, so it was $29 instead of $46 or $47 or whatever it would’ve been.  It’ll be lighter weight than cotton, and has such a nice drape to it.  Quilting shows up so prettily on wool, too.  In any case, they were all out of 80/20 and Hobbs cotton.  I got Mountain Mist twin-sized poly batting for the two smaller quilts, on sale for $10 each; so that made up for the wool batting that cost a little more.  I was really pleased to find it; they don’t often have it in stock.

Home again, I began loading a customer’s quilt on my frame.  As I load backing, I like to steam it.  Much easier than trying to drag it this way and that on the ironing board that’s much too small for a large backing. 

But... as you may recall, my Rowenta Steam Station went kaput (actually, it blew up and spewed a geyser) a few months ago, and I’ve been making do with a regular iron.  It’s a really, really nice T-fal iron with a ceramic plate... but it can’t hold a candle to a Rowenta Steam Station.  Especially when they blow up.

Well, trying to use the T-fal iron to steam a backing as I load it isn’t much fun and games.  The iron itself holds the water, so it’s heavier than the iron that goes with the steam station with the separate reservoir.  The trigger only releases a smallish burst of steam (possibly considered a large burst of steam, by those who’ve never experienced steam bursts from steam stations), and one must continue pulling the trigger to keep the bursts of steam coming.  Furthermore, if you don’t periodically tilt the iron back up to a vertical position, the steaming stops entirely, as the iron, considering itself quite smart, thinks you have set it down flat on the ironing board, left it there, and forgotten about it.

I ker-plunked the iron down in disgust, pulled up Amazon and eBay, and typed in, “Rowenta Steam Station.”

I’ve been waiting... waiting... looking... looking... for one that wasn’t almost $300 ------ and there it was.  It was on Amazon, and it was $223, as opposed to the usual $295. 

Shipping was only $12.50, as opposed to the usual $50.

I’ve been bereft of a steam station for lo, these many months.  Since March 28, to be exact.  I bought that thing so fast, both my keyboard and my credit card were a-smokin’.

Then I happily got back to quilting.

My Avanté quilted perfectly over the fairly thick fused appliqués on my customer’s quilt.  And the wool batting gave it a very nice loft, exactly like I hoped it would.  The pantograph is called ‘Evening Primroses’.

After my feet and back began protesting, I stopped for the night, and edited and posted pictures from our trip to Lake View, Iowa, a couple of weeks ago.

I like watching for names of towns wherever we go.  Sometimes I look them up, find out their history, learn why they are named as they are.

Sometimes when we went through Odebolt, Iowa, with some of the kids in days gone by, I’d say, “Why would anyone write a poem to a bolt?” 

Those members of the family who had not yet learnt what an ‘ode’ is would look at me blankly.  (It’s actually pronounced “O-dee-bolt”, but if I pronounced it that way, the joke[?] wouldn’t work.) 

When we were driving through Arkansas a couple of years ago, we went through a little town called ‘Y City’.  Noting signs along Highway 71 near the town that read ‘Sheriff Cody Carpenter Memorial Highway’ and ‘Wildlife Officer Joel Campora Memorial Highway’, I looked it up to see what the story was behind this.  Turns out, these men had drowned while trying to rescue victims of an overnight flash flood along the Fourche Lefave River in the May 31, 2013 floods.  Both men were beloved by family and communities.

I suppose many people have heard of the little town of Tincup, Colorado, elevation 12,154, on Cottonwood Pass.  Years ago, when quite a few of the kids were with us, we went into the one tiny store there and bought – what else? – tin cups.  😄

And how about Truth or Consequences, New Mexico?  I learned the name of that town when a person we used to know moved there.  We thought it was ironic, because the last thing that person generally considered doing was telling the truth. 

And then there’s Why, Arizona; Idiotville, Oregon; and Boring, Maryland.  There’s Dismal, Tennessee; and Disappointment, Kentucky.

And the sister city to Why, Arizona?

It’s Whynot, Mississippi, of course!

There’s more.  Lots more.  But if I give you too many at once, you’ll all be a-thinkin’ I live in Looneyville, Texas!

A friend asked me if I take pictures as we drive, or if we stop and I get out to take them.  I take a good many of my pictures as we are driving – ‘drive-by shootings’, I call them.

But we stop to look at things, too, stretch our legs and walk a bit.  And I always have my camera in hand.  😊

Thursday, I sent Hester a text, asking how they were doing.  She replied that everything was going well, and Keira was eating good.  She sent me a picture of the baby in a little basket they got for her.  She makes that basket look big! 

Their cats were very glad they were home, although the kitten Spooky (who’s almost a year old now) was missing her feline buddies at Andrew’s sister’s house, where she’d stayed while Andrew and Hester were in Omaha.

Even when cats squabble, they miss each other when one is gone.  After Socks died, Tabby would race up the steps, hoping to work up a game with Socks... and when no Socks was forthcoming, he’d sit up there and howl like a banshee.

Dorcas wrote to say she’d gotten a ‘mystery package’, and wondered if it was from us.

Yep, it was.  It was her birthday present from us – Pioneer Woman cooking dishes.  Wal-Mart doesn’t give me the option of sticking a birthday card into the box.  At least, I don’t think they do... I should look into the matter.  😃

The gift arrived sooner than I’d expected it to.  Her birthday is on the Fourth of July.

When Dorcas was little, she thought everyone was celebrating her birthday on the Fourth of July.  One time we were sitting up on a hill by Lake North, watching fireworks over the town... then we drove down some side streets, and had to stop while a family lit off fireworks in the middle of the road.

Dorcas sighed happily.  “That’s so nice, for people to do that!”  Another happy sigh.  “And they don’t even know me!”

When she was three or four years old, we were at our Fourth-of-July church picnic, walking alongside the tables with all the food at Pawnee Park, filling our plates and helping the children fill theirs.  Larry and I each had two plates in hand, one for ourselves, and one for a smaller child.  The three older children were carrying their own plates.

We got some distance down the table, and then realized we were missing one kid.  I looked back down the line – and spotted Dorcas, back at the beginning of the line.  She had gotten herself a piece of chicken, and then, instead of moving on down the line, she’d simply put her plate on an empty patch of table and started eating, right there where she stood.  Everyone was stepping around her, reaching over the top of her head to get to the bowls and pans.  😁

Hearing a low rumble of thunder, I grabbed my customer’s quilt and scurried outside to get pictures of it in natural lighting before it rained.  More pictures here.

As I spread out the quilt, Tiger sat and observed the process.  And then the wind lifted it up in a big dome shape (can you tell?), and started carrying it slowly in the cat’s direction.  He sure skedaddled into the house in one big hurry!  haha

He came back out, meowing in protest, when I laughed at him.  😆

I had a bit of a startle when I stepped up onto a deck chair – same one I’ve used time and again – to take pictures of the quilt from overhead ----- and the canvas seat ripped right down the middle! 

First thoughts:  Save the camera!  (I did.)

Dumb thing.  They ought to make that nylon canvas stuff heavy-duty enough to hold 125 pounds, even if that 125 pounds is all concentrated on one foot! 

It didn’t look like anything was wrong with it!  And it didn’t feel like anything was wrong with it ----- until something was really wrong with it.  heh

I put the quilt inside, and then trotted around the yard taking pictures of mulberries, lilies, and weed buds.  More photos here.

I ate a few handfuls of mulberries while I was out there.  Mmmm, yummy.

Mulberries have a more mellow flavor than blackberries, raspberries, etc.  If I’m using them alone in pies or jellies, I generally add a generous dose of lemon juice.  They are scrumptious when used with other fruits.  I love a rhubarb/mulberry combination in jams and tarts.  They’re good with any berry, and with peaches, apricots, etc.

There were three more quilts to go, including one from my grandchildren’s piano teacher.  I hurried back upstairs and started loading the next one.

When Larry got home from work that evening, he removed half a dozen volunteer mulberry trees that were growing up into our deck and putting down roots too near the house foundation.  Don’t worry; we still have a dozen more!

I stopped quilting for the day when I reached the halfway point on my customer’s Log Cabin quilt.  I really, really like it.  I wonder if she’d be suspicious if it got ‘lost in the mail’?

Friday afternoon, the Schwan man came.  I got everything I will need for the Fourth-of-July church picnic, except something to drink.  I usually make lemonade.  But sometimes we just fill Larry’s five-gallon Thermos with icewater.

By suppertime, the Log Cabin quilt was all quilted.  Photos here.

Before I loaded the next quilt, I asked Larry to relevel the Studio Frame.  He did so, and tightened all the bolts, many of which had vibrated quite loose.  I laid the pantograph on the table, and was ready to load the backing.  But maybe I should fix supper first?

Supper that night was a stove-top casserole, of sorts, comprised of jumbo shrimp, corn, peas, green beans, garbanzo beans, zucchini, baby potatoes, broccoli, and eggs.  I cooked it with lots of butter, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and homemade sweet salsa a friend of ours gave us.  Mmmmm, was that ever good.

Afterwards, I loaded the next quilt, one called ‘Red Hot Flashes’.  I got a couple of rows done that night, and finished it the next day.

Saturday, I quilted all day.  After Larry got home from work, he spent the afternoon and early evening trimming and cutting down volunteer trees and fighting off mosquitoes.

Then Hester and Andrew invited us over – and we got to hold Baby Keira for the very first time!  She’s all the way up to 7 pounds, and, at the actual age of 2 ½ months, has hit the approximate date she was supposed to be born.  And she smiled at Larry when he talked to her – on purpose!   (I mean, the baby smiled on purpose.  You probably knew Larry talked on purpose.)

She looked right up into his eyes while he talked to her, thoughtfully considered what he had to say, then she huffed and puffed, working up steam, you know, and then she hauled right off and smiled.

(No, of course I didn’t have my camera ready when that happened.)

We had supper with them – lasagna, garlic toast, lettuce salad, and chocolate pie.

Here’s my customer’s quilt, called ‘Red Hot Flashes’.  More pictures here.

One more customer quilt to do, and then I can make the pillow to match the Americana Eagle quilt.  Reckon I can get it done before entry date at the county fair a week from today??

Yesterday afternoon, I was all ready for our evening church service, sitting at the table editing a few pictures, when, aauugghh, Teensy came howling in the door, with a chipmunk.  He tries to sound like a big jungle cat bringing home the bacon.  He was panting; he must’ve had to chase it. 

The chipmunk was beyond saving.

I sent the cat back out.  He went, chipmunk in tow.  Or in jaw.

15 minutes later, and he was back again, still carrying the chipmunk, which looked a little the worse for wear, though he was feeling no pain.  I ordered him back out.   The cat, not the chipmunk. 

The cat declined – and put the chipmunk at my feet.

I collected it by the tail and went and flung it out into the back yard.

Teensy stared at me reproachfully.  I stared back, every bit as disapprovingly.

Yesterday was my nephew Kelvin’s 51^st birthday – he’s the one who spent most of the last year fighting colon cancer.  After a long, hard year with several times where we thought we might lose him, he seems to have made a remarkable recovery, and is doing very well.  Though the doctors have said there is no cure for that cancer, there was no sign of it at his last several doctor visits. 

When we got home from church, we had Mexican-Style Chicken Tortilla soup with crackers and cheese, and some scrumptious beef/deer jerky Bobby gave Larry for Father's Day.  He made it himself on his Traeger grill.  We had peaches for dessert.

Then Larry went off for a bike ride, and I answered some email, uploaded pictures, and did all sorts of ICS (Important Computer Stuff).

When our kitty Teensy came to us, he had a habit of sucking on blankets.  I looked it up on the handy-dandy Internet and learned that cats might do that if they’re taken from their mothers too young, or if they’ve suffered some sort of trauma.

His trauma was likely that his owner gave him to her parents (our neighbors) when she moved from her house in town.  They didn’t want him indoors, and he’d never been outdoors.  They tried to keep him in the garage... their vehicle scared him to death... he ran away ----- and Victoria found him a week later way down at the bottom of the hill, frightened and half-starved half to death.

She brought him home and fed him and gave him water.  He decided he preferred us to them.  We called him TNC – The Neighbors’ Cat.  Say TNC fast, and it becomes Teensy, which was a joke because he was so big.  They said his name was Wilfred, but he didn’t seem to know it.  Furthermore, we know a Wilfred, and he’s a fine cross between friend and objection, ... so we didn’t want a cat by that name. 

Speaking of Teensy – he just came in... with a baby bunny.  Aarrgghh, that’s worse than a chipmunk.  Maybe we should call him Wilfred after all.

Again, the poor little critter was beyond saving.  I scooped up the cat and put him out the front door, giving him a lecture as I did so.  He made a long, low howl, still clutching his prize, back in WBJ (Wild Beast of the Jungle) mode.

Larry got back from his bicycle ride 2 ½ hours after he’d left.  He’d gone 39.5 miles, averaged about 15 ½ mph, and burnt over 1,250 calories.  I was almost ready to call him and see if he was all right, since he was about half an hour later than he’d said he would be.

Before going to bed, I put my customer’s three quilts into a box, taped it shut, and affixed the label to the top.  Larry mailed it for me today – but he thought the post office included the UPS Store, and thereby paid more to ship it.  Sometimes people have told me that UPS is cheaper than USPS – but that’s certainly not the case in this town!  Why would it be different in other towns, I wonder?

I found a big box on the porch this afternoon, and wondered what in the world it was, and who in the world Chester Calara (name changed to protect the innocent) of Pelham, Alabama, was, and then suddenly realized:  It’s my new Rowenta Steam Station!!!!!

The person who shipped it wrapped the Rowenta box with bubble wrap and then put it into a slightly bigger box.  That’s all well and good – but he didn’t put any packaging at all inside the Rowenta box itself!  And he didn’t secure the iron to the base with the clasp.  So the iron rattled around madly inside that box, all the way from Alabama.  Good grief.

Larry filled the reservoir with water and turned it on.  After it heated (and it heats much quicker than my old steam station did), I gave it a try – and it works perfectly, thank goodness.

Aaaa!  Interruption while I slay a granddaddy longlegs that had the audacity to go tramping up the wall beside me.

Last week, I hurt my wrist cranking quilts forward on my frame.  At least, I think that’s what I did to it.  I know sometimes it hurts when I turn those bars, and it has steadily gotten worse for the last week or more.

Larry keeps telling me to wrap my wrist, but I haven’t yet.  It might hurt!  😲  Besides, I’d have to go look for the wrap, and I’m in here, and it’s in there (pointing).  Maybe. 

Last night when I packed up those quilts, I really had to squish them to get them into the box, and taping the flaps shut whilst a-squishing the box weren’t no easy task, huh-uh, nosirree.  But ah done it!  And my wrist complained somethin’ awful afterwards. 

But the biggest problem is blowing my nose.  It must put that hand at precisely the wrong angle.  I never knew before how often I need to blow my nose!  And I would fix that Mexican Tortilla soup for supper last night.  Hot, hot, hot!  It’s a nose-blower fo’ shore.

When my kiddos were little, especially the older ones, they counted everything.  One time Keith and Hannah, ages 4 and 3, were sitting at the table having a rare treat of corn chips.  Keith counted his... peered into Hannah’s bowl... and said, “You have more than me!”

And Hannah, that Hannah, reached over and pressed her fist into Keith’s bowl of chips, CRRRRRUNCH, then said calmly, “Now you have more than me.”

I had to wait a moment or two before I could get my face on straight enough to march in there and inform her that she really shouldn’t have done that, and then to tell Keith he needn’t count everything.  haha

Weed buds

Time out; the dryer is buzzing.  That’s the last load, except for some towels on the line that will have to stay there overnight, since they didn’t get dry before the sun went down.

... ... ... Okay, I’m back.  The clothes are all put away.

Later...

I have found the elastic bandage and wrapped it around my wrist and thumb.  I have to admit, it does feel better.  But I hurt it again when I hung those big ol’ wet and heavy bath towels out on the line.  😒

Bedtime!  Tomorrow I must get a customer’s quilt quilted.

One of these days, I want me a T-shirt that says, “One triangle short of a quilt!”

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