Last Monday evening, I finished the central section for the ‘All Creatures Great & Small’ quilt. Next, I took a picture of it, imported it into my EQ8 program, and set about attempting to concoct some fancy-schmancy borders for it.
Everything
I tried looked worse than the previous attempt, and it was becoming steadily
more difficult to hold my eyes open in any case; so I gave up and went to bed. I would try again the next day on a fresh pot
of coffee (or a tall mug of Cold Brew, as it were), after spending a little
while looking at animal quilt pictures I’ve saved on Pinterest. That generally gives me some good ideas.
Accordingly,
Tuesday found me hunting through Pinterest, and putting a few quilt pictures
into new tabs for further consideration.
A pretty little barn swallow suddenly landed
on a vine right outside my window, and sat there making little chirping noses,
while dozens of fellow swallows swooped acrobatically over the yard gathering
up insects. The sun was shining on him, turning
him iridescent. (Photo by Gerald
Romanchuk for the Freshman Research Initiative.)
The little swallow’s beak was open. He was hot, sitting there in the bright
sunlight!
A couple of cabbage white butterflies were
doing a waltz directly below him, fluttering from flower to flower, then doing
upward spirals, and his little
head was turning this way and that as he tracked them. Annnd... he was off again like a shot,
dipping and swooping over the yard.
Meanwhile, bunnies were having a leapfest out
in the lawn. They’re so funny to watch.
By late
afternoon, I had finished the EQ8 design for Nathanael’s quilt, All Creatures
Great & Small.
I went searching in my fabric bins to see if
I had what I needed. Just as I thought,
I didn’t have nearly enough light-colored fabric for the background, even if I made it
scrappy (that is, with a variety of light-colored fabrics). So I hurried off to Hobby Lobby before they
closed – and found exactly what I needed at less than $5/yard. I got five yards.
That’s
when I discovered that the AC was not working on the Mercedes. The lights on the controls came on,
but the fan did not. Ugh, it was hot.
That day, Hannah had an appointment with a
dentist in Papillion, an hour and a half to our east, to have mercury removal
and repair done on her teeth. We are
hoping this will improve her health.
But it didn’t start out too well – she
fell down her garage steps on her way to her vehicle, badly turning her ankle
and scraping
and bruising the other leg.
The mercury-removal procedure lasted about
three hours.
That middle section of the quilt isn’t
warped; I had my lens at 18mm in order to get it all in, and should’ve stood on
a stepstool to get farther away from it.
As I cut fabric, I listened to ‘The
Civil War’ by Shelby Foote. I hunted for
an audio book on this war after chatting with Levi last week, and realizing I
had forgotten (or never knew in the first place) a whole lot of details about
the Civil War. This is a very
interesting book, and the narrator is good, too.
Here’s a picture Hannah sent me, taken
on their trip to Washington, D.C. Didn’t
Joanna wear the perfect dress for these sunrise shots on Virginia Beach?
My ‘Winding Thread’ question on my Quilt Talk
group that evening was this: What was
your favorite quilt shop, and why did you like it?
Here’s my ‘favorite quilt shop’ story:
We once went in an old, old quilt shop
in a quaint little town.
Near the front of the store was an old
dry cupboard filled with all kinds of homemade candles, potpourri, and
soap. It made the whole store smell
absolutely scrumptious. The moment we opened the big old door with the
giant cowbell that announced our entrance, we smelled a faint odor of
fresh-baked apple pie. I had actually thought it was a souvenir shop, and
was surprised and delighted to discover it was a quilt shop.
The ceilings of the large building
were about 25 feet high, of pressed tin. The floors were rough-hewn wide
planking, and there were antique sewing machines sitting around here and there
in picturesque settings, usually with partially-done, antique quilts arranged
under the presser foot and fanned out just so, as if the seamstress had just
hopped up for a moment and would be back shortly. The bolts were arranged
in ‘rooms’, with the ‘walls’ being stand-alone shelving, again of rough-hewn
planks (possibly old barn planking), and all coordinating things were together
in such beautiful order, it made one wish one could say, “I’ll have a couple of
yards of every bolt in the store, please.”
In each ‘room’ there was a
lovely quilt displaying some of the fabrics in that particular area, along with
a little wooden rack with a variety of pattern books or packaged
patterns. In the center of the store, under a huge chandelier comprised
of old-fashioned lanterns, there was a ‘book store’, and the choices included
not just pattern books, but also historical books featuring quilters and their
quilts. There was even a tall pump thermos of gourmet coffee and a couple
of comfortable chairs, in case you wanted to sit down and read one of those
books.
One entire room was devoted to notions
and tools of all sorts. Quilts hung high on the walls all the way around
the store, rigged with cords and pulleys and hardware to make it easy to change
them.
And, oh, yes, the restroom. It
was a wonder ladies ever came out and let another in, in timely fashion, the
way they had that restroom and small lounge decorated. The toilet was one
of those old-time apparatuses that has a wooden tank affixed high on the wall,
sporting a pull chain (did you ever wonder what would happen to your hairdo,
should one of those things spring a leak whilst you were, ah, perched?), and
the sink was a pedestal type with double cross-handles. There was
beadboard paneling all around, and lanterns for light fixtures – but what
stalled everyone out was the array of amazingly gorgeous and intricate
miniature quilts arranged so beautifully and artfully around the walls.
In one corner of the little lounge area stood a tall, old wooden ladder with a
couple of antique quilts hanging on the rungs. In a vintage magazine
rack, there were – what else – magazines, circa 1920s and 30s.
The owner and employees were friendly,
helpful, and homey. (No, not ‘homely’, homey! – i.e., ‘with
the ability to make one feel at home’.)
This was a long time ago, and I cannot
remember for the life of me if it was in Arkansas… or Missouri… or Wisconsin…
or Michigan… or Minnesota... or... I recall that there was a stream
flowing rapidly right through town, wooded hills on all sides, and some of the
little shops along the old brick street had decks at the back, built right out
over the stream – more of a small river, really – where you could sit at
wrought iron seats or benches and tables, and eat the homemade goodies some of
the stores offered.
I know it was not to our west, not
Colorado or Wyoming or Montana or Idaho or suchlike, because there was a whole
lot of vegetation – vines climbing the trees, etc. – and the trees were mostly
deciduous, as opposed to evergreens. It was summertime, hot, but not
unpleasantly so, and a bit humid. Only the side streets were brick, not
the main thoroughfare. There was only
one main street, and I believe it ran north and south. It’s possible it
was somewhere along the St. Croix.
But! – ♫ ♪ I’ve been everywhere,
man, ♪ ♫ crossed the desert fair, man, ♫ ♪ trouble I’ve seen my share, man, ♫ ♪
I’ve been everywhere! ♫ ♪ --- So how am I to know? If I try
adding any more details, it’s very, very possible that I will wind up
accidentally combining lovely locations I have stored in my memory – or my
imagination, for that matter.
I recall the store ladies’ expressions
when they saw us walking in with the children (I think they were all with us,
but I could be wrong about that – sometimes the older ones stayed home). In any case, the youngest was Victoria, and
she was not yet a year and a half. The
ladies tried to hide it, but I saw horror on their faces, as they glanced from
our ducklings, large and small, to all their pretty things.
We walked quietly through the store
admiring things, and now and then one of the children pointed something out to
me – usually in a whisper, for they were shy. Besides, no one else was
saying anything; it probably felt like a library to them – especially when we
came upon the books and chairs in the middle.
When nothing calamitous seemed
imminent (candle jars still intact, no antique sewing machine pedals stepped
on, vintage quilts left untouched), the ladies in the shop began warming up,
then became friendlier and friendlier. I wonder if that was the shop
where I bought a kitten quilt pattern and a set of greeting cards with a quilt
pattern embossed on them? Finally, as we were about to go, one of the
ladies, after asking my permission, brought out a basket of lollipops for the
children.
The children thanked them, even little
Victoria. “Fankoo,” she said, as we turned to leave.
Small fry do not believe that sound
waves travel in any direction except in that particular track that leads
directly to the ear of the person to whom they are speaking, ever notice
that? Victoria, whose only word(s) until
now had been to voice her appreciation for the candy, suddenly proclaimed in
her piping little voice, “I wike twit chops!!!”
And then everyone burst out laughing,
and out the door we went, with the ladies merrily waving and admonishing us to “come
back soon to our ‘twit chop’, and bring all the children!”
And that’s my twit chop – er, quilt shop – story.
Here's another favorite quilt shop, Calico Annie's, in Fullerton.
Wednesday, Victoria sent pictures of Willie sitting
on his bed with the quilt and pillow I made for him, and another of him with
his little cars in a color-coded circle.
The other day, Victoria remarked that something ‘was no big deal’, and Willie said, “It’s a tiny deal?”
About the same time, Amy told me that Warren
puts his quilt (the Farmall Scenes quilt) upside down on his bed when he makes
it, in order to keep the top nice and clean.
😄😍
I printed a couple of the foundation
papers for some of the triangles for the Flying Geese border on Nathanael’s
quilt, and cut fabric for them.
An online friend asked for prayer for
her little boy, who was going to have tubes put in his ears and his adenoids
removed.
I answered, “I
will pray for your little boy,” and then told my story about my child having
tubes put in his ears and his adenoids removed:
Our son Joseph
had this surgery done when he was three and a half. That was some 37 years ago.
He recovered
quickly. His balance, which ear
infections had thrown off a bit, improved so rapidly that, the very next
afternoon, he learned to ride his bike without training wheels. That was not my idea, mind you; I had no idea
that the child was pulling such a stunt as riding his bike the very day after
having tubes put in his ears, of all things. Keith, the helpful elder brother who had
removed the training wheels for his little brother, seemed to think he was
doing just the sort of thing one ought to do for those who have had a recent
stay in a hospital, in order to cheer them up properly, don’t you know.
I knew nothing of
these exploits and escapades, imagining the children walking calmly up and down
the front sidewalk as they might if they were in an Easter promenade, until
Hannah came dashing excitedly into the house, all smiles.
“Mama!” she
exclaimed in a loud half-whisper, mindful of her baby sister taking a nap. “Come see what Joseph is doing!”
Feeling an
inkling of alarm, I accordingly went quickly to the front door and looked out
the window. There was Joseph, flying
pell-mell down the sidewalk on his bike, Keith running along behind him,
purportedly to catch him if he fell, though I seriously doubt he could’ve. Their laughter floated back to me as I
watched, my hair standing on end.
I shuddered.
But he seemed to
be doing an utterly bang-up job of riding, and I hesitated to prohibit such
fun. Who likes to be a killjoy, after
all?
I decided that
the best course of action was to retire from the window and quit looking.
It was kind of miserable driving to church without air conditioning that
hot evening, especially since I didn’t want to roll the windows down too far and
demolish me cute leetle coiffed hairdo. At
least it only takes seven minutes to get from our house to the church, I
thought, and then, Oh – I need to pick up an order at Walmart for groceries
for our annual 4th of July church picnic Friday. So it would take a good half an hour after
church to drive to Walmart on the far east side of town and then home again. But at least by then it no longer mattered if
my hair got messed up, right? 😅
A watermelon was supposed to be in my
grocery order. It was not. ‘Out of Stock’, it said, when I looked up my
order online. Watermelon??! Out of stock on July 2nd???
Probably they mark it thus when they
get back to the room where they take everything before bringing it out to the
customer, and discover they forgot something.
“OOooops, ‘Out of Stock’.” Like that.
After a
quick supper, I went back to my sewing room and finished the large Flying Geese
triangles, and got the smaller ones half done. The finished size of this
block is 17.38” x 8.75”.
For some unknown
reason, someone posted this comment on a Facebook story about the fireworks
warehouse explosion in California: “There are 48 million kangaroos in Australia and
3,457,380 inhabitants in Uruguay. So if
kangaroos decide to invade Uruguay, every Uruguayan must fight 14 kangaroos.”
I’m always glad to know such valuable things; but... what in the world did
that have to do with a fireworks warehouse explosion?
Thursday,
I attached the top and bottom Flying Geese borders and finished the Flying
Geese for the side borders of the ‘All Creatures Great & Small’ quilt. But it was bedtime; I had to get up early to
get ready for the picnic the next day!
My
contribution to our annual Fourth of July church picnic was spaghetti and
meatballs, corn on the cob, Doritos, blueberry streusel muffins, and five
gallons of ice water.
An elderly lady that most of us called
Grandma Armstrong used to cut corn from the cob and freeze it, and it was the
best corn I ever had in my life. I once ate
supper at the home where she lived with her daughter and son-in-law when I was
young. Somebody filled my plate for me,
and assumed that because I was small, I would only want a small spoonful of the
corn, and they never offered me more before everyone else finished it off. waa waa waa
I wonder what made it so delicious? I know, for one thing, she didn’t cut it very
close to the cob at all, though when she was done, she’d gently scrape her
knife down the sides of the cob. This made
sure no part of the cob got into the corn. That may have been part of it. Or maybe they planted an extra yummy variety
of corn?
Friday morning, I stuffed the Instant
Pot full of frozen corn on the cob, started it – and realized half an hour later
that it still hadn’t even started counting down the minutes! 😮 When will I ever learn that this is what
happens when that thing is crammed full of frozen foods?!
The spaghetti sauce and meatballs were
in the oven. As soon as the aroma was
wafting tantalizingly about, I tossed in the noodly things, which had already
been cooked on the stove, popped it back in the oven to stay warm, and then
carried everything else out to the Mercedes.
It was time to go before the Instant
Pot had finished its cycle. Figuring the
corn was done or close enough, I turned it off and released the steam.
Wow, that was quite the impressive steam
geyser I made.
I put an entire stick of butter in the
pot atop the ears of corn, covered it with aluminum foil, and was ready to
go. I brought along some butter-flavored
popcorn seasoning, too, since no one has invented a way to get melted butter to
stay on hot corn on the cob.
Here’s the
pavilion where we have our Fourth-of-July picnics, located on my niece
Christine’s property. The lake curves
around on the right. Our son-in-law,
Bobby, had a number of patriotic songs arranged for the band to play at noon.
I went for
a ride in the covered trolley behind a tractor driven by my great-nephew
Joshua. It was a fun but dusty ride.
Victoria
sent me home with a piece of her yummy chicken and a strawberry oatmeal cookie
bar, both of which I was very glad to have by evening.
“Thank you for the scrumptious chicken
and cookie bar!” I texted her. “It turns
out, I needed it really bad. Right
now. 😋”
I never can eat enough at noon
to keep me full for the rest of the day.
Believe me, there was lots ’n lots
o’ food.
Another great-nephew and his wife had
a new baby girl (as opposed to an old baby girl) that evening – and
they’d been at the picnic, just a few hours earlier! They named her ‘Ivy Susan’, after her late
grandmother, my niece Susan who passed away last year.
I came upon Carolyn and Violet holding paper cones that used to have cotton candy on them. Some friends had brought a cotton candy machine, and made dozens of those fluffy confections.
As I was trotting around taking
pictures, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that a friend of mine, who’d
been about to walk around me, came to a screeching halt, the better not to
interrupt my photo session. So I held
the camera down and grinned at her as she proceeded on.
“I just about photobombed your
picture!” she said.
And I? I started to say, “You’re quite likely
to do that whenever you’re around me, since I’m forever taking pictures!”
BUT! — she went rushing on her way, so
that the only part of the sentence I got out was, “You’re quite likely to do
that –” and there I petered out, since there was no one with whom to finish the
conversation.
I thought about shouting after her, “I
DIDN’T MEAN THAT!” Or maybe, “LET ME
FINISH!!!” Or something. 🤣
Maybe my friendly grin will smooth the
gaffe, even though the grin came before the gaffe. Catholic penance.
There was homemade ice cream, too. The big 15-gallon churns are powered by the John Deere tractor (next page). The young couple is Roy and Samantha, with their little girl Emmalyn. Roy bought Loren’s house three years ago, shortly before he and Samantha were married. They are expecting their second child. Roy’s father Tim is making the ice cream.
When I got home, I began editing photos. I’d taken 203 pictures plus one video. By the time I finished with the editing, I had
250 pictures plus one video, because I copied several and then cropped them
differently in order to focus on different people who were in the original
photo.
Through the evening, I could hear fireworks
going off all around us. I love
fireworks. I am sorry about your
chickenhearted pets who are frightened of the noise. We raised stalwart, patriotic animals who
weren’t scared at all.
Kidding, kidding. About your scaredy-cat pets, that is. Ours truly weren’t afraid; I’m sorry
for those that are. No need to shoot
pop-bottle rockets at me!
We were once out in front of our house one
Fourth of July evening, watching as our older kids and some friends from down
the street shot off fireworks. Our big
Siberian husky, Aleutia, was in the back yard, where she had access to the
safety of the garage, if so she desired.
She did not desire, thank you kindly.
She desired to be out front with us.
So she opened the latch on the gate and came
out.
She never did have any trouble with
latches and handles, or even bungee cords.
We should’ve named her ‘Houdini.’
Here she came, trotting happily along, open
grinny-grin on her face, big bushy tail waving proudly. She sat herself down right beside me, bonked
her cold, damp nose against my hand (“Hi!”), and then proceeded to watch the
show.
A rocket flew high, and exploded in showers
of sparkling colors.
“OoooOOOOooo!” said the children.
Aleutia, who had watched the trajectory,
tilting her head back as the rocket ascended the sky, tossed her head, put her
lips in a circle, and howled, “OoooOOOOooo!” on the same note as the children
had done.
Huskies are the funniest doggies. Here she is with Teddy.
This is the trolley I rode in. My great-nephew Joshua is driving the
tractor. There were two or three other
wagons being pulled by tractors, but this is the only one with a cover. The trail took us all around the lake – two
lakes, really, connected by a narrow neck – and through wooded areas. The ride took about 20 minutes.
There were probably around 475 people at
the picnic.
As I edited pictures, I sent several shots of various children to their parents. That’s the fun part about taking pictures of the little ones: giving those pictures to their parents. See my photos here.
To my great-niece Lynette, I sent pictures of
her two little girls, Gracie Anne and Christina. Both
little girls are sweet as can be.
“Do you
just call her Gracie?” I asked.
“Yes, we call her Gracie unless she’s
being naughty 😄,” Lynette
replied.
Next, I sent her a photo of one of her boys
swinging high, and another of a little girl and a little boy on the horse swing
with her brother Daniel pushing them. “Could you please
very kindly tell me who these are?” I requested. “If kids were just taught to stand in a line
with their siblings every time I aim the camera at them, I’d have a much
better notion of which member of which family they are!” 😂
She obligingly gave me the
information.
I have now reminded myself once again
of the aforementioned elderly Grandma Armstrong, who often used to remark, “I’d
never know who these children were, if they weren’t with their parents!”
And that was back when the size of our
congregation was less than half what it is now.
A friend of ours made this huge swing
with concrete and steel. Just to give
you a notion of how tall it is, my great-nephew Michael (Larry’s boss at Walker
Foundations) is standing on the left. He’s
about 6’ 8”. His brother Daniel is on
the far right, and Daniel is about 6’ 6”.
Their youngest brother, Joshua, who
was driving the tractor pulling the trolley I rode in, is 7’ tall. When my brother Loren was still able to come
to church, he was forgetting more and more of our fellow parishioners,
especially the young ones; but he never failed, if given the slightest
opportunity, to ask Joshua, “How’s the weather up there?”
And Joshua, though surely that must’ve
gotten old, never failed to be friendly and kind.
I was delighted when I got as tall as
my Grandma. But she was only about 4’ 10”,
I think! I suppose I was maybe 9 or 10
when I got that tall. By the time I was
12, I’d reached my full height of about 5’ 2½”.
Saturday evening, Hannah texted to say that
during the previous hour, they’d gotten rain from a mostly sunny sky.
I looked out the window, and realized it
was thunder that I’d heard a while earlier.
Right then, there was a very dark cloud overhead, and there were thunderheads
on the northern horizon. A few drops of rain fell, even as the sun shined
brightly in the west.
Then Hannah
remarked that she believes Nathanael gauges the length of his shower by how
long it takes to run their decent-sized hot water tank out of hot water.
I well remember those days of running
out of hot water.
Caleb used to run us out of hot water
by turning on the shower ‘until the water got warm’, so he said – and then he’d
curl up on the rug and fall sound asleep. I tried to remember to keep an ear out for a
shower running and no accompanying sounds of thumping of elbows and dropped soap
and shampoo bottles, but now and then I forgot, and only realized the problem
when nothing but cold water flowed into the sink of dishes I was often washing
about that time.
Sewing until bedtime, I got the Flying
Geese borders and another narrow border attached to the ‘All Creatures Great
& Small’ quilt.
I’ve discovered that if I drink Cold
Brew when I’m blow-drying and curling my hair, especially on Sunday mornings, I
don’t get so unbearably hot. How’s that
for a flabbergasting scientific breakthrough?!
Here’s the sky after church last
night, as we drove home from Walmart after picking up a few groceries. It was changing fast. Too bad I didn’t have my big camera! Just my phone cam, which is rinky-dink.
I took five quilts to the County Fair this morning.
Home again, I washed
the dishes, made a new gallon jug of Cold Brew (I use decaf coffee beans), and
paid some bills.
The flavor of the
Cold Brew this time is Strawberry Crumble.
Christopher Bean describes it thusly: “Flavors of Strawberry Jam and Buttery
Crumble, with a Vanilla finish.”
The brew will have a
nice flavor in as little as three hours, but I like to leave it at least half a
day – and a whole day is even better.
Then we only need a concoction of 1/3 Cold Brew to 2/3 water. The last gallon of Cold Brew lasted ten days,
and Larry and I both had at least one tall thermal mug of it each day.
I considered ‘borrowing
back’ two or three quilts I made after the County and State Fairs were over
last year, and which I gave away at Christmas time; but then I saw how many
were stacked right over there on my couch.
And when I looked at the County Fair categories, I saw there the silly
people who run the show just haven’t made enough categories for me! You can only enter one item in each category,
and there’s a limit of 20 total items. So...
😏🤭😉
OH! a pretty little female cardinal
just landed on the vine right outside the window beside me! She was no more than 6” from my nose. (Photo from
Illinois Department of Natural Resources.)
At 2:00 p.m., the temperature was 82°,
with a heat index of 93°. By 4:00 p.m., it was thundering like everything, and I received
a notice that rain would start soon.
It did –
a gentle rain, for once. By a quarter
’til seven, the sun had come out again.
There
are two small bunnies – preteens, I imagine – playing hide-and-go-seek amongst
the hostas and lilies in the front yard.
The
coolest it’s going to be during the night tonight is 77°. Guess I won’t go outside and pull weeds in the
morning; it’ll be 83° by 9:00 a.m. I had
a bad case of heat exhaustion a number of years ago, with a high fever and a
dreadful headache. Ever since then, I’ve
had to be cautious about working outside on hot days.
The next
morning will be even hotter. Some days
rain is predicted. Thursday, I have a
morning appointment with my eye doctor in Lincoln to get the Botox injections
for this Benign Essential Blepharospasm I have.
It takes two hours to get there.
I think
the weeds will just have to enjoy themselves for at least another week.
The washer is done and it’s time to toss the clothes into the dryer. It’s thundering and lightninginginging (I
never know when to stop, with that word) again!
And now it's raining hard. Yes, the weeds will be enjoying themselves.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,