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Monday, July 29, 2019

Journal: Bear Paws & Crop Dusters


Tuesday morning, I worked outside in the flower gardens.  It sure was a pretty day.
We had bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches for supper that evening, along with lettuce salad I fixed using cucumbers and peppers from our neighbor man.  He said they were sweet peppers.  They were not.  They were jalapeños.
I like jalapeño peppers.  So... I finished the salad.
It wasn’t really all that much, but wooooeeeeeee, was it ever hot!
And for the first time ever, they made me sick.  😲 
Ugh.  At least it was a fairly quick ordeal.  I won’t do that again.  That is, uh, next time I’ll eat jalapeños with moderation.  😉

That evening, as he’s been doing for several days now, Larry went off to bale hay at Teddy’s, using the ‘new’ baler he got in Kansas.  It’s not knotting knots properly.  😜
He brought back a few clothes from Amy that needed to be dried; their dryer isn’t working.
Wednesday, I took the clothes back to Amy, and brought home a puppy in return.
A stuffed puppy, that is.  The EMTs gave it to little Warren in the ambulance, and its tail needed to be reattached.  I also put a little button on its collar where something was missing.
With the pup soon repaired, I got back to the Bear Paw quilt.  I had more cutting of diamonds and triangles to do before I could start putting together the pieced border.
I got most of it cut, and then it was time for church.
After the service, we went to Wal-Mart for seatbelt covers for Amy and the children, as the belts were hurting their necks and chests where they’re still bruised and cut from the accident.  We found sheepskin covers (probably fake sheepskin).  The store had only ten – exactly the number we needed (though if they’d’ve had one more, we’d have gotten it for Teddy). 
Along with the seatbelt covers, we gave Warren back his puppy, which made him happy.
Amy and the kids are gradually getting better.  The concussions have some lingering effects.  Some days Amy can’t remember what day it is, and sometimes she’s dizzy, and of course everyone has a lot of aches and pains. 
Leroy’s head looks remarkably good for being partially scalped; the scarring is going to be minimal, it seems.  Ethan’s scar is in the crease of the eyelid, barely noticeable.  Emma’s will show a bit as it extends from her hairline into her forehead half an inch or so.  I told her to cut a little strand of hair and put a 1920s Flapper Curl right there.  heh

The concussion bothers Lyle the worst of the children; probably because he had a concussion a few years ago when he crashed his bike.  Sometimes he looks so pale, the freckles on his little nose show up in stark relief.
Elsie’s tummy was hurt from the seat belt.  For a few days afterwards, if she stretched, she’d then bend over rapidly, wrap her arms around her tummy, and say, “Ouch!”  Then, wrinkling her nose, “It’s from the crash.” 
She got a few mosquito bites the other day, and they turned into big red bumps.  One of her siblings said, “Oh, wow, you have great big mosquito bites!”  She nodded, wrinkled her small nose, and said, “It’s from the crash.”
By Thursday night, the pieced border was on the Bear Paw quilt.  There was one more border, plain and with cornerstones, to go.
As I was finishing putting together side #2, I thought, I didn’t cut enough of the big brown triangles. 
So I cut 19 more.
When I was done with all four sides, ... can you guess what I discovered?
Did you guess?
I had 19 triangles left over.  😆
I also discovered I had two long pieces of sashing and cornerstones left over.  Huh?  What in the world.  Well, I thought, leftover pieces are simply seeds for another quilt.
I began sewing the borders onto the quilt.
The first two went on fine.
The next two ... were a good four inches too long.  Huh?
I looked at it... measured... remeasured...  ???  This quilt is a square.  The borders should be the same length.  They were.  ???
Finally, finally, I realized ------- Oh.  I forgot to sew the sashing and cornerstones onto the sides.  The sashing is 2” wide, finished.  So there’s where that extra four inches in the borders came from.
I removed the two borders I’d already sewn on (yes, of course I sewed them to the sides of the quilt that were lacking the sashing/cornerstones; if there’s a 50% chance I’ll get something wrong, I will)... attached the sashing... reattached the borders.
And guess what?
Did you guess?
Everything fit.
Which is better than can be said for the Bear Track blocks themselves.  I have learned (though I periodically ignore what I have learned, to my consternation and frustration), when designing in EQ8, that one should pay attention to the measurements of each piece, checking it out in ‘no rounding’, in ‘rounding to 1/16” ‘, and then in ‘rounding to 1/8” ’.
Those HST ‘claws’ in the block were 2.569”, 2 9/16”, and 2 5/8”, respectively (according to the above ‘rounding’).
Well, I cut them at 2 5/8”.  That’s 1/16” too big.  And I neglected to trim them after sewing HST to HST to make squares.
Therefore... some of the points are cut off.  🙄
Ah, well.  Had I been more concerned about it, and in less of a rush, I’d have stopped and trimmed.  It’s not going to a quilt show... and Kenny will never notice.  (I hope.)  I’ll try to make up for it when I quilt it.  But next time!  Sigghhh... 
I posted some pictures that night: 
Friday, I cut and attached the last border on the Bear Paw quilt.  After taking some pictures of it on the back deck, I laid it aside and started on a set of potholders for my great-niece Danica, who’s getting married next Sunday.
Below are the first pieces of fabric I pulled from my stash:
I rummaged for some coordinating colors, and then looked through a volley of pictures before deciding on a pattern for potholders.
I got eight potholder tops cut and put together that night.

Saturday, I went to Hobby Lobby for fabric for a customer’s table runner.
Home again, I cut the batting and backing for the potholders, and began putting them together. 
When I quit for the night, I had binding sewn onto three potholders, and was ready to apply it to the other five.
The table runner will be next.  It’ll be done next week.
Here are some kids having a ‘train ride’ at our Fourth-of-July picnic.  They all think this is hilarious – they’ve got a drive-by trash dump!
But... when I looked at my before-and-after shots of that garbage can, it was clear that nary a one of those girls made a basket (which is precisely why Leroy’s nose is all wrinkled in delight).  (There were a few adults standing there running interference, tossing the wayward cups into the trash.)
Jonathan is in the car beside Leroy, and my great-niece Rachel is in the car just behind them.
Some friends and I were discussing things we take with us when we go on a trip.  One lady laughed, “I took four pairs of shoes with me, just to go to Chicago overnight!”
“Well, you can’t have too many shoes!” I assured her.  “When one pair rubs your little toe, you put on the pair that rubs your heel; and after a while you put on the pair that rubs your instep. You gotta have enough pairs that the first owie heals before you get through the rotation!  😆
A female orchard oriole is taking a bath in the blue birdbath.  And an aerial crop duster is zooming back and forth, back and forth, over the cornfield immediately to our north, and sometimes circling directly over our house.
And that’s all for today!  Gotta get those potholders done...


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




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