Journal: Quilting Studio, Star Blocks, & a Birthday

 

It was a bit chilly and cloudy here last Monday, just 60°.  We had creamy chicken noodle soup with butter croissants for supper, Oui peach yogurt for dessert, and V8 Orange Pineapple juice to drink.  

The longarm tech was coming the next day, so I cleaned the French windows in my quilting studio.  They’ve been needing it... I’ve been putting it off... so it was a good time to get it done.  Don’t want the tech to think I’m slob, now do I?

I had already packed away all the quilt paraphernalia I was working on and carted it into my little upstairs office across the landing when I knew the tech was coming, so nothing would be in his way.  

The tech arrived at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.  As I mentioned last week, he came because the Avanté continued to skip stitches unless I used a size 20 needle, even after he worked on it at the store and thought he’d gotten it fixed.

Wow, it only took the man 15 minutes, tops, to repair the machine.  He’d forgotten his ‘practice quilt’, so I quickly pulled out a couple of pieces of fabric that I thought would be big enough and that I wasn’t planning on using.  I’ll probably need them tomorrow, right?

After the man left, I carted all my Stuff & Things, Jetsam & Flotsam, back into the quilting studio.  It took me longer to carry stuff out and then back in than it took him to fix my machine!

Now hopefully it won’t take the Bernina tech too long to fix my other sewing machine, the Bernina Artista 730.  It’s by far the best for embroidering, but the one I’m using right now, the Bernina Artist 180, sews perfectly; I’m thankful for that.

I then got back to piecing the star blocks.  Here is one of the patterns in EQ8 on my computer.

It got up to 80° that day, quite warm for the 29^th of October.  Hearing a loud commotion from a whole lot of birds, I looked out the window and discovered the large lawn across the lane chockful of grackles.  One day last week, all the big maple trees along our fence were totally covered with European starlings, and they were singing (i.e., squawking) their heads off.

I have a cherry tree, and in all the 21 years we’ve lived here, I’ve only gotten one solitary cherry off of it before the birds ate them, and that one cherry wasn’t even quite ripe.

Furthermore, when I plucked it off and popped it into my mouth, a robin in the top branches squawked angrily at me.  “That’s MY cherry!  Mine!  Mine!!!”  (That’s what it sounded like to me, anyway.)

Some years, the cedar waxwings arrive in a town in Iowa that has cherry trees lining Main Street.  But... when the weather is right (or maybe ‘wrong’), the cherries ferment.  The birds strip the trees bare of cherries, and the next morning, residents of the town find drunk birds staggering along the sidewalks, unable to fly.  🫢🫨🤭

It was so windy that day, the neighbor’s automatic sprinklers were all blowing water the opposite direction the nozzles were aimed.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Larry stopped by to get his motorcycle, as he was going to ride it to Norfolk, 40 miles to the north, to get the boom truck that was being serviced there.  He used the crane on the truck to lift that big motorcycle onto the truck bed, where he strapped it down for the drive back to Walker’s shop.  Once there, he lifted the motorcycle back down with the crane and rode it home again.

That night, I used the last box of soup mix from Cabela's – potato soup – for our supper.  It takes three cups of water and three cups of milk, so it makes a big potful of soup.  We sprinkled cheddar cheese on it.  I still have a small balance left on one of our Cabela's gift cards; I should use it on more of that boxed soup mix; it’s scrumptious.

I finished these two blocks that night – Sara’s Star and Sara’s Star Variation.  These were the last of the ten 10” blocks for the ‘Consider the Heavens’ quilt.

I don’t like a messy house, but there are almost always areas in the house that could use a good dusting, especially at harvest and planting times.  There are cornfields, pastures, and soybean fields all around our house; and when the farmers are busy, our house gets dusty fast.  Our vehicles outside get dirty, too, as first the dew covers them, and then the dust. 

Below is my view out the window in my sewing room to the north.  The cornfield north of those four evergreen trees has been harvested.

Wednesday afternoon, it only got up to 47°.  I pulled out leggings for the first time this season.  The squirrels were racketing about like everything on the roof, periodically dashing lickety-split along the eave that’s directly below the window in my front dormer.  They’re so funny.  I like to watch them go dashing along with a nut in their mouths – then suddenly stop, dig a hole, paws a-flying, drop the nut in, and then push the dirt back over the hole and pattity-pat-pat it down.

They won’t find all those nuts during the winter and coming spring.  They bury a whole lot more than they need.  Some of those volunteer trees around our property are compliments of the local squirrel population!

This is the view to the northwest.

It was Kurt and Victoria’s 8^th anniversary that day.  After church that evening, I gave them a Teabloom teapot – which, as it turned out, had a broken infuser.  There was hardly any packing between the interior and the exterior boxes, and the USPS man was not at all careful when he tossed it on our porch – and he didn’t bother to put it in the plastic bin we have on the porch for packages, even though it was raining.  When I found the box, it was all soggy.

I ordered a new teapot and returned the broken one.  The new one arrived Saturday.

By the time I quit sewing and headed for the feathers that night, I had completed two of the four 6” Tall Stars, other than removing the paper from the backs of them.

We finished our potato soup that evening, putting bacon bits on it this time.  We had those yummy canned biscuits with it, along with strawberry applesauce and white cran-peach juice.

After supper, I went back upstairs to my quilting studio.  I was sewing away when I realized I’d been hearing Big Equipment – and it was quite late. 

I texted Larry:  “You are making too much noise!  And it’s 10:30!”

He promptly replied, “How can I be making too much noise in the tub?”

Oh.  Huh.  My sewing machine had evidently been humming along so steadily, I had not heard the tub.

“Who’s running road graders and back hoes and skid loaders, then?” I asked.  Then, “Okay, now I see lights in the woods to the east.”

It was the neighbor man taking out some dead trees over there.  How ’bout that.  Someone outside making noise later than Larry does.  😯

About that time, I got two notifications at once from AccuWeather.  One read, “Rounds of Snow & Rain!  A storm is bringing wintry weather in the final days of October.”  The next one said, “Warmest Halloween Possible!  Expect record-challenging warmth potential for Halloween as drought and fire risk continue.”

Okay, okay; the first notice was for Utah and Montana, and was specifically referring to a Pacific storm; while the second was speaking of the Northeast United States.  Still, it was funny, receiving Notice 2 hot on the heels of Notice 1.

Late that night (or early the next morning, depending on your point of view), I finished all the 6” blocks:  four Tall Star blocks, and six 8-Pointed Stars.  That was all the pieced blocks; now I was ready to cut the non-pieced blocks and the sashing, and then start putting the quilt top together.

Friday, I began doing just that.  By the middle of the afternoon, one row was together, and the rest of the non-pieced blocks were cut, along with some of the sashing.

This is the view from the east window of my quilting studio.  Teddy’s place can be seen in the distance.

After burning the midnight (and later) oil, I got the 'Consider the Heavens' quilt top entirely put together.

Saturday, I dropped off the newly-arrived Teabloom teapot at Victoria’s house, collected the broken one and took it to the UPS Store, then proceeded on to Omaha to visit my brother Loren.

I got back home a little after 6:30 p.m.  We had a supper of Swedish meatballs and noodles, applesauce, and kolaches, and then I scurried upstairs to put together the backing for the ‘Consider the Heavens’ quilt.  It took several cuts and splices to get the piece of fabric to the proper size.  There was only enough for Grant’s quilt; I’ll have to rummage up something else for the backing for Leroy’s quilt.

Here it is – and yes indeedy, it glows in the dark, as advertised!  (Blurry, because the tripod was in the car, and I didn’t feel like traipsing out to get it.)

There was an extra hour that night! – so I loaded backing, batting, and quilt top on the frame, cleaned, oiled, and threaded the longarm, and quilted just a few inches before quitting for the night.

Amy wondered, “Do you think Grant will flip the quilt upside down and use it that way, since the glow-in-the-dark fabric is on the back?” 😁

I was about to close my laptop and head to bed when I noticed a live stream of Oklahoma weather on YouTube.  I took note not only because of my quilting friends who live there, but also because my nephew, our pastor, Robert and his wife Margaret were in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, where Robert would be preaching Sunday at a preacher friend’s church there.  When I saw that there were multiple severe tornadoes, and that at least one was close to my friends’ homes, my hair stood up on end, and stayed that way for a while, until I was pretty sure that the twisters had passed them.  The lady told me the next day that one tornado was heading directly at them, then lifted just six miles from their home.  The wind howled louder than she’d ever heard before, and there were tree limbs down all over their country property, but their home escaped damage.

Sunday was Larry’s 64^th birthday.  We’re the same age again!  😉

It was foggy that morning, and drizzling through a thick mist as we drove to church.

After the service, Hester gave Larry his gift from their family – a wall-décor canoe with ceramic plates fitted into it.  The artwork on the plates was done by renowned painter Terry Redlin.  Isn’t it beautiful?  She gave Larry cookies, too.

It’s rainy here today.  I washed clothes and sheets, refilled the bird feeders, watered the houseplants, shined up the bathroom, and washed the dishes.

There are tornadoes in Oklahoma again today, and also in Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri.  I’m watching the weather on apps on my laptop, as I have friends in all those places.  I don’t know if my nephew and his wife are home yet or not.  

It was about 5:00 p.m. when we started getting rain from the northern bands of that same storm that was producing all the tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.

Kurt and Victoria and their four children, and Hannah and her youngest, Levi, came visiting this evening.  Victoria brought soup and homemade bread for us for Larry’s birthday, and Hannah gave him two pieces of framed artwork she’d made.  She does beautiful quilling (that’s artwork with tiny rolled and shaped strips of paper), making flower arrangements around a piece of music – ‘Surely Goodness and Mercy’, one of Larry’s favorite songs.  The second frame has a picture of Larry and me in it.

Quilling looks a lot like quilting – only with paper.  Don’t you agree?

Willie was delighted to find the canoe with the ceramic plates where I had propped it temporarily on the loveseat. 

“It’s a long boat!” he exclaimed, all prepared to gather it up and play with it.

Kurt explained to his small son that it was just for decoration.  So Willie, somewhat disappointed, got a book from the bookcase and went to ask Grandpa to read it to him.

Grandpa did, of course.

Little Arnold is such a happy and cheery baby.  If we big people smiled as much as that baby does, our cheeks would be all tired and worn out!

Meanwhile, Levi tuned up a few notes on my piano, while Carolyn and Violet looked on.

As I type, I’m sipping Caramel Butter Crunch coffee from Christopher Bean, and I can attest that it’s MMmmmm, good!  Good thing it’s decaffeinated, since it’s bedtime.  (Not that caffeine keeps me from sleeping.)

Good night!

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

Journal: Harvesttime, Lincoln Continentals, and Stars

 

As I type, I’m sipping coffee from Christopher Bean, in the ‘Everything Tastes Better with Cat Hair in It’ mug.  It’s flavored with caramel, butterscotch, and hazelnut (the coffee, not the cat hair).  Mmmm, it’s good.  I saw this mug in a picture a lady posted on my quilting group, and had to have it.  

Uh, I ordered my own cup, that is; I didn’t steal the quilting lady’s cup.

English, tsk.

Teensy (I think) and Tiger (for sure) were still alive when I got it.

Here’s a picture that just scrolled through on my screensaver:  Victoria, 2 ½, ‘doing homework’ – an obviously hazardous occupation requiring protective headgear.  Her ‘tweazshoos’ (treasures – a favorite word of hers for a little while) are all around her.  She had learned to write her first two initials.  If you zoom in, you might be able to see a few ‘VM’s (for ‘Victoria Maurine’) here and there on the page.  The photo was taken in the Autumn of 1999.

Victoria was once scribbling away (sorta carefully) on a big page, and when I stopped to look at it, she smiled up at me and said, “I’ll be reading before you know it!”  😄  She was two.

Hannah, at about the same age, once frowned studiously at a sign somewhere, and then told me, “I can’t read it, but I know what it says!”

Perhaps someone had read the sign to her before?  Perhaps it was a road sign, and she recognized it by shape and color?  😄

Victoria sent an audio clip of Willie saying that he had Cheerios – and the word got a little longer each time she asked him to repeat it, until, in the end, it had a total of five or six syllables.

“I really think you should make a studious, concerted effort to spell that on paper, phonetically,” I told her.

When Keith was about 1 ½, he called ‘hamburger’ ‘hangle-burger’.  ‘Hangle’ with a hard ‘g’.  Larry still says it that way.  😆

A few years back, there was a woman newscaster on a local rural radio station who had grown up in Neeebrasky, gone to college in the northeast, then come back home and gotten a job at the radio station.  In an apparent attempt to impress her listeners, she tried talkin’ ‘Brooklyn’, but the accent failed her now and again:  She recited a news story that she said had occurred in “New Yawk, New YORRK” (with a really hard ORK on the second ‘York’).  😄

My new smartwatch isn’t quite the smart-alec-watch the old one was.  The old one would periodically order me, “MOVE YOUR BODY, YOU LAZY DOLT!”  This one says, “SITTING TOO LONG, YOU COUCH POTATO YOU!”  (I may have added a few words.)

Many times, my steps up and down the stairs don’t get counted, because I have a cup of coffee in my left hand, and because I carefully hold it still, the watch thinks I’m not even moving.

I remarked on this to Victoria, and she responded, “I push a stroller.  Apparently, that doesn’t work, either.”

“Put the thing around your ankle!” I recommended.

“😆 I should just violently swing one arm,” she answered.

The old watch periodically lost all my morning steps (making the bed, shining up the bathroom, starting a load of clothes).  It would happen after I removed it to take a shower, then started putting it back on again.  BZZZZT!!! – and it was back down to 0 steps.

The watches also don’t count many steps when I’m sewing and quilting.  I hop up from the sewing machine all the time to rush over to the ironing board... regularly go around the quilting frame to cut more fabric... but the watch doesn’t start counting if the burst of steps is less than ten.  And when I’m using my quilting machine, I keep elbows to my side, and try not to move arms/wrists much at all, to make for smoother quilting curves.  

The watch thinks I am comatose.

This picture of my great-niece Danica and granddaughter Joanna playing together at our 4^th of July picnic in 2005 just scrolled through on my screensaver.  Joanna is 20 now.  She’s on the right in these pictures, in that cute little green watermelon-print dress.

Tuesday, I quilted the Vintage Airplanes quilt – and found that my longarm still skips stitches unless, as before, I have a size 20 needle in it.  I made sure to put a size 16 in it when I had it worked on.  Siggghhhhh...

Here’s the pantograph; it’s called ‘Air Show’, by Judy Lyon.

By 1:15 a.m., the quilting was done and I had cut the quilt from the frame.

‘Air Show’ was a fairly easy pantograph, not nearly as intense as the last two I did.  Funny, how that works: sometimes the hard ones look easy, and vice versa.  Easy enough – but it still took 10 solid hours, from loading the top and the batting (the backing was already loaded) to trimming the quilt from the frame.  Judy Lyon puts little arrows on her pantos, too, to show which direction to go.  That helps, with intricate designs.

Wednesday, I paid some bills, cleaned the kitchen, and then trotted upstairs to put the binding on the Vintage Airplanes quilt, with a break for our midweek church service that evening.

It was a pretty, sunshiny day, with an afternoon high of 65°.

That afternoon, someone wrote under some pictures I posted on Facebook, “Hello I hope thating thying theying of trying toing trying I’m fine thanking ofing of the trying I’m fineing to being to tying to being bettying I’m finging fine thanking of telling you the reign ing the tryingim fine todaying day thanking you”

???

After some consideration, I responded, “I totally agree!  I think.”

One of Larry’s cousins asked me, “What are you going to do when you have a quilt for all the grandchildren?  You can always make some and save them for the great-grandchildren that will come along someday.  They will be a treasure to anyone who receives them.”

“I need to make quilts for some of the kids again,” I told her, “as some of theirs are several years old and worn, and I can quilt better now than when I made those.”

There are a few other relatives I’d like to make quilts for, too.  One at a time, one at a time...

Larry didn’t get home from work in time to go to church with me.  After the service, I was in the front vestibule with several of the children and grandchildren.  Victoria was holding baby Arnold’s hands as he stood there like a tiny wind-up wooden soldier, and Caleb was holding baby Maisie’s hands as she was standing directly in front of Arnold.  So there they were, nose to nose, looking each other over from head to toe and smiling at each other.  It was cute as all get-out.  They’re ages 8 and 9 months.

Larry was home by the time I got back.  We had a light supper (chicken and dumplings with Flipsides pretzel crackers, white grapes, cottage cheese, cran-watermelon juice, and Oui yogurt), and then I finished the binding on the Vintage Airplanes quilt.

Thursday was a windy day, with sustained winds over 20 mph and gusts over 30.  I did a bit of housecleaning, kept an eye on the trees, and, when there was a lull in the wind, hurried outside to take pictures of the Vintage Airplanes quilt on the back deck.

I had just enough time to snap a few pictures before the quilt, true to its name, took flight.  😆

The quilt measures 73” x 84”, and was designed in EQ8.  The airplanes were cut from a panel called ‘Flying High’, by Dan Morris for QT Fabrics.  I used Omni light charcoal 40-wt. thread on top, and Bottom Line red 60-wt. thread in the bobbin.  The batting is Quilters’ Dream wool.  This quilt is for grandson Justin, age 12.

I’ll wait ’til I get my Bernina 730 back from the tech at Nebraska Quilt Company to make the label.  Hopefully, the tune-up and repair will not take too long (or cost too much).

I then returned to construction of the blocks for the ‘Consider the Heavens’ quilt, getting two done that day and three on Friday.  These two are called ‘Star Variation’ and ‘Rising Star’.

A woman on the rural radio station had evidently come upon a new word that day while telling of a couple of local businesses that had joined forces.  Multiple times in the space of five minutes she informed the general public that said businesses had ‘clobberated’, and were ‘clobberating’ their efforts.  😅  I wonder just what she thinks that word means, and what, precisely, she envisions those particularly businesses doing?

Speaking of funny pronunciations...  When Caleb was young, we read a story about an orphaned skunk kit someone saved.  It grew so tame, the people felt it could not survive on its own – and had, in fact, returned to them several times when they tried to reintroduce it to the wild.  So they had its scent glands removed, and considered it their pet.

Shortly after reading this story, we had the windows open on a nice summer evening – and then the unmistakable smell of skunk came wafting into the house.

“Phewwww!” exclaimed Caleb.  “That one sure hasn’t been desmellered!”  😆

By 12:30 a.m., three more blocks were done for the ‘Consider the Heavens’ quilt:  1) Lu’s Star Variation, 2) Martha Washington’s Star, and 3) EQ Star 6 . 

Saturday, the tech returned the call I’d made about my Avanté.  He said he was planning to be in our area Tuesday, and could stop by and take a look at it, as he’d like to see it on its own carriage and frame, since it had worked fine the previous week after he worked on it in his shop.  (Isn’t that always just the way?)

That afternoon, I went to visit Loren.  The high was only about 62°, and the bright Autumn colors are fading.  79% of corn is harvested in Nebraska, along with 94% of soybeans.

When I got to Cedar Creek (of Prairie Meadows), Loren was nowhere to be found.  I made a circuit of the interior... asked the nurses where he might be... made another circuit... still no Loren.  By now, several nurses were helping me look.  The nurse he particularly likes was stumped.  She’d just helped him to a loveseat in the wide center hall, knowing I’d soon be coming. 

But, despite the fact that he has a hard time getting up even with help, he was just plain gone.

A couple of the nurses were getting a bit worried, probably more because they feared I would be upset than that they feared he may have gone out an exterior door when a visitor came in.

“I didn’t expect this to happen,” exclaimed the nurse, sounding distressed.  “He was winded and wheezing, just from our walk down the hall!  I thought he’d stay put.”

I laughed and said, “He’s probably ‘gone visiting’ in someone else’s room.”

Sure enough, it wasn’t more than a minute before a tall black male nurse was waving his arms and gesturing at a room directly across from the loveseat.  “He’s right in here!” he called.

Loren had made himself at home, and was sitting in the recliner in that room.

The nurses retrieved him and brought him back to the loveseat.  I came and sat beside him, handing him a 1985 National Geographic with pictures of Yellowstone elk on the front cover, and a snarling tiger inside.  There was also an ad for a 1985 Chrysler LeBaron Turbo Mark Cross Edition.  Loren actually turned several pages in the magazine, which he doesn’t often do.  Coming across the Chrysler ad, he immediately paused and read a few of the headlines – an increasingly difficult task for him.

Assuming as usual that all photos in the magazine were taken by me, he asked, “How do you like this car?”

“I’ve never had a car like that,” I told him, making him peer at me suspiciously.  “But you had a Lincoln Continental Mark IV.”

He remembered – or at least he seemed to.  “That was a good car!” he said.

Several times he began, “I’m so glad you came when you did, because I need –”  But he never could come up with the words to tell me what he needed.

I showed him my new watch, and he laughed at the number of steps it had already registered for the day. 

A few minutes later, he said he was thirsty, so I went and got him some water.  He sometimes remarks on how fast I walk.  So perhaps the watch, and the walk to get water, were on his mind when he said, “I need to take you to Mama’s house, so you can run around in the back yard.”  (Like taking a puppy to the dog park??)

I turned my head and looked at him, expecting him to be teasing.  He was not; he was quite serious.  He then thought he needed to ‘pack go home’, and later, when I gathered up purse and tablet in preparation of leaving, he thought he needed to come with me. 

“You’d better stay here,” I told him, “because they’ll be coming to get you and take you to the dining room for supper in a few minutes.  Are you hungry?”

He considered, then decided, “Yes, I think I am hungry.”

So I bid him adieu and fled quickly, Stage Left, before he could scramble up and try to come with me.

There was a pretty sunset that evening.

I got home at about 6:30 p.m.  We had a supper of beef stew, yogurt, and cran-watermelon juice, and then I scurried upstairs to do some dusting, sweeping, and straightening in expectation of the longarm tech coming to look at my machine tomorrow.

There were several folded stacks of fabric on the quilting frame for use in the ‘Consider the Heavens’ quilt.  It was all sorted and in order, so I carefully put it into a box, making sure not to mess the order up.

I still need to wash the windows and vacuum out the sills; I’ll do that tonight.

After church last night, we picked up an order at Walmart.  When we got home, we made sandwiches with butter croissants, thick-sliced Carving Board chicken, Colby Jack sliced cheese, and lettuce.

Larry reattached the light cords in my quilting studio to the walls and ceiling.  A few years ago, he’d put the cords into flat casings and stuck them to the walls; but they didn’t stay stuck, on account of the textured paint.  So he used small plaster screws to hold them in place. 

The geraniums Caleb and Maria gave me for Mother’s Day 2023 are still blooming, both the peach and the red.  I badly need to cut and repropagate the poor things.

Gotta get those windows cleaned!

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