Sarah Lynn's Nature's Splendor: January 2016

In all my years of sewing for the children (and myself, now and then), sometimes with a pattern, sometimes not (though I often kept a simple bodice in the proper size handy, so I didn’t get too far afield), here’s something I learned: it is a whole lot easier to fit a child than an adult.

If a little dress doesn’t fit perfectly, tie a wide sash around the child’s middle, make a big bow, and Voilá! – she’s the Belle of the Ball. Try that on me, though, and what you’ve got is a mattress tied in the middle.

Once upon a time when I was nine or ten years old, Janice asked what kind of a dress I’d like for Christmas. I described it, waxing eloquent: crushed red velvet, white lace overlaying the center part of the bodice, a red satin cummerbund, puffy sleeves with white lace over the long, buttoned cuffs...

I thought we were playing a game. But Janice whipped out some tissue paper, held it up to my back and scribbled on it with a fat pencil... kept measuring and scribbling... And before I knew it, she was laying crushed red velvet on her table, pinning that tissue paper to it, and cutting. A couple of days later, I had the Dress of My Dreams.

If she taught me anything at all, she taught me to be fearless in sewing! I miss her.

Late Monday night, as I was rushing past my customer’s finished quilt lopped over my quilting frame, I suddenly noticed a spot I had missed—a little section of sashing I had totally neglected to quilt. I’d taken a bunch of pictures... looked at it time and again... Two days later, I finally saw it. So Tuesday, before I loaded my customer’s second quilt, I ‘floated’ the first one on the frame and finished it. That done, I loaded the quilt #2, an ‘Around the World’ pattern, and quilted it with a ‘Meandering Butterfly’ pantograph.

After reading my story about the quilt shop owner who unexpectedly sold her quilt for $9,000, a friend asked me, “If someone spotted your Mosaic Lighthouse quilt and offered you $9,000 on the spot, would you sell it?”

For $9,000... I just might sell that quilt. I just might. Or maybe not. That would only give me $12.50 per hour (720 hours are in that thing), not counting the price of the fabric, which was well over $350 (though I did have enough leftovers to make the Mosaic Sailboat quilt).

Okay, if we subtract the amount for the fabric, $350, then I would wind up with $12.013888888888888888888888889 per hour. Would that be worth it? Would I ever want to do such a thing again? I sort of doubt it. On the other hand, I’d know that I needed to measure well and often as I went along, so I wouldn’t wind up with one section so much larger than the other, as happened on the first quilt. Maybe I’d have a better quilting machine by then, and could do a better job on it. Or maybe it would be too much for a better quilting machine, and I’d totally destroy an expensive machine. The HQ16 is a 2005 model, but it’s a tough one, and it sewed through all those seams and the gridded pellon interfacing without too much trouble at all.

Well, it’s a moot point (does it bug you when people write, ‘mute point’?), since no one is standing here with a stack of greenbacks in hand, begging for that quilt.

It snowed Tuesday, and we were issued a winter weather advisory. It only got up to 19° that afternoon, and there was a wind chill of 9°. By the time it quit snowing, we had 4”.

Meanwhile, I quilted a quilt.

Doesn’t matter how many times I say that, it always sounds funny to me. ‘Quilt a quilt.’ I still think someone should come up with a different verb. ‘Triliquopterate.’ There’s a good one. ‘Tri’ = three, three thicknesses. ‘Quopterate’ = combination of quilting, seeing, and operating. The ‘li’ was just thrown in to make the word sound prettier.

Noah Webster needed me!

As I type, I’m sipping piping hot coffee. My java of the moment is from The Village Coffee House, and the label on the front reads, “When Coffee Meets Caramel, Amazing Things Happen.” One of the children gave it to me for Christmas, I think. Unless I gave it to myself for Christmas. ? Okay, I just learned that it was from Caleb and Maria. :-)

Dorcas finally got the big resin bears I mailed a couple of weeks ago. That box sat at the Atlanta post office for five days.

I think if a package shows signs of arriving before the post office said it would, a postman somewhere sits up and takes note, then cries, “Whooooaaaa!!! DROP ANCHOR!!!!!” And the box lands, ka-THUD, and doesn’t move again for days.

I asked Dorcas if she remembered the story of why we named her ‘Dorcas’. I know kids at West Park School, which she attended from Kindergarten through grade three, made fun of her name, and I was sorry about that. But it was a special name for a special little baby, and I will always love that name. There were two reasons for it:

First and foremost, I loved the story of Dorcas in the Bible, and prayed that my baby would grow up to be someone who loved to help others, as the Dorcas of old did.

Dorcas used to find the picture in our big blue Bible Story Books, and say, “This is me!”

I’d tell her, “No, that’s Dorcas in the Bible!”

So she’d smile and say, “This is me in the Bible!”

Second reason: My father preached at a church in Higginsville, Missouri, when I was quite young. The pastor and his wife were very nice people, and they had a little girl named Dorcas who looked like a china dolly with her long blond curls and big blue eyes. Best of all, she was just as sweet as she looked. So that really cemented my love of the name.

Shortly after I started first grade, we were each required to tell the others our middle names. I announced that I didn’t have one. I said my whole name was ‘Sarah Lynn’, and ‘Sarah’, as they called me at school, was just my nickname. The teacher disagreed. I held strong and adamant.

I went home in great indignation at noon to report the matter. Imagine my humiliation when I learned the teacher was right, and I was wrong!

Teensy had a scuffle with ... something, last Monday night – probably a stray cat, as the marks look like cat scratches and cat bites. By Tuesday morning he was limping rather badly on one front leg. But before I could get to the vet for antibiotics for him, he began improving, and by the next day he was hardly limping at all.

Tuesday evening, a man came from Glenwood, Iowa, to look at Larry’s six-wheeler. Problem: Larry was nowhere to be found, and didn’t answer his phone. I called Caleb... he didn’t know where his father was. I called Teddy – and learned Larry was at the church helping with construction on the new school. He was using the boom truck, and either couldn’t hear his phone, didn’t have it with him, or the phone had died.

So... I made the man a fresh cup of coffee, waded through the snow to the Jeep, and then, after the man was nice enough to clear the four inches of ice and snow off my windshield, I rumbled off to town to find Larry.

We passed each other on the way. I didn’t see him; I was too busy perching on the edge of my seat and wiping fog off the inside of the windshield with my glove every few seconds. The passenger’s side was clear; the driver’s side kept fogging up. Larry saw me but couldn’t call, because his phone had died and was deader’n a doornail, and he had no charger with him.

Upon learning where I’d gone from the man looking at this six-wheeler, he went into the house, plugged in his phone, and called me – just as I was pulling into the empty church parking lot.

The man was sympathetic... because... he has eight children, including a set of twins. One generally learns to be more sympathetic with others’ plights when one has a large flock o’ kids.

I finished my customer’s Around the World quilt later that night, and then worked on some photos.

Wednesday, I removed the chalk marks from the quilts, packaged them up, and took them to the post office.

Dorcas sent pictures of snow at their house. They don’t often get snow there. She remarked that people aren’t used to it, and they don’t drive well in it.

When drivers aren’t used to snow, I think their motto is, ‘Steer hard and slam on brakes often!’

A package of Royal Riviera® pears, hickory smoked summer sausage, three-seed crackers, and caramel Moose Munch® Gourmet Popcorn from Harry & David that we’d sent to Todd and Dorcas had been delayed because of their weather. The package was on the truck – but they hadn’t even attempted delivery for two days. I hoped it wouldn’t wind up like the Israelites’ manna that they tried to save until the next day, when it “bred worms and stank”. :-P

In about a month, Todd and Dorcas will have a new baby.

I once told Hannah, age 4, that we would have a new baby about the time the flowers were starting to bloom, meaning April. In the middle of January, she walked out on the porch to get the paper, spotted lavender and yellow crocuses poking up through the snow, blooming away, and she shouted loudly enough to alert the entire town of Columbus, “WE’RE HAVING A NEW BABY!” I imagine they thought she meant right then that very moment, sans hospital!

We took several little Jackson kiddos to church that evening, as Amy had a fever of 103°, and Teddy was staying home with her.

Biscuit is getting better; the children told us happily that she actually ran a little bit, playing, even though she was still in quite a bit of pain. She had barked a few times, too – a milestone, since it was even hard for her to breathe. She’s going to make it, and we’re glad.

Thursday, I shipped off my Mosaic Lighthouse quilt to Paducah, Kentucky, where AQS headquarters are located. They will transport all the quilts on to Daytona Beach, Florida, where the show will be held next month. I had to stop at Dollar General on the way for packaging tape, and then I climbed into the middle seat of the Jeep to thoroughly tape that box shut. If anyone saw me get in there... and then get back out and re-install myself into the front seat a few minutes later, they were doubtless thinking, That Alzheimer’s patient does NOT belong behind the wheel of a car!

The quilt is heavy... the box was awkward... there was snow and ice everywhere... and by the time I got home, I felt pretty much like I’d gotten myself run through a ringer backwards.

I searched through my pattern files and came up with a nightgown and robe set in Joanna’s size, and headed downstairs to cut it out for her.

I was sidetracked for a few minutes when I spotted two different kinds of woodpeckers at the feeders: a male downy (our littlest woodpecker), and a red-bellied woodpecker. The red-bellied has a bright red head in addition to a slightly pinkish stomach, and the downy has a big red spot on the back of its head (the female downy has no red).

I put down the camera and got on with cutting out a nightgown.

I have now rediscovered one of the reasons why, after the children grew up and flew the coop, I gladly switched from clothes-making (especially knit-clothes-making) to quilting (especially with nice quilter’s cotton)!

I had a piece of soft, soft, premium knit in soft, pale pink, with darker pink sprays of tiny dogwood blossoms on it, and shiny embroidered dots here and there, giving it a subdued dotted-Swiss effect. With this, I planned to make Joanna’s nightgown and possible a matching hooded robe.

That is, I would do this, if I ever happened to get the dreadful stuff folded on grain!!!! AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggghhhh!!!!!

It stuck to itself. It stretched. It twisted. It rumpled. I couldn’t seem to smooth it out to save my life.

But I went on unsticking, untwisting, and unrumpling, wishing for another pair of hands (or at least a stack of bricks on which to bang my head).

It’s a wonder the family didn’t find me going to and fro in my wooden rocker, humming sweetly to myself: ♫ ♪ Oh, they’re taking me away, haha, ♫ ♪ they’re taking me away, ho ho ♫ ♪ ... ♫ ♪ To the funny farm, ♫ ♪ where life is beautiful all the time! ♫ ♪

By 9:30 p.m., I had it all cut out, and the pieces were nice and straight. I finally gave up trying to line up the selvedges, and just made sure the fold was straight, since I had to use it for a few pieces. I didn’t have enough fabric for a robe, so I cut out a long-sleeved nightgown, and used up every bit of excess fabric on ruffles for hem and yoke. I found some Venice lace to put on it, too. I always feel a nice sense of accomplishment when I use up a big piece of garment fabric of one sort or another. Or maybe it’s more on the order of, There! Got that stuff outa my hair!

I threaded my serger – and then Larry got home, hungry and hoping for company in the kitchen. So I turned off all the basement lights and brought my computer upstairs to work on photos while he ate supper. More photos are here: Squirrel, Nuthatch, & Friends

And here: Upside-Down Teensy

Friday, I took some supper to Loren, and in doing, I walked down our sidewalk twice going to and from the Jeep, and I saw nothing odd anywhere. But when Victoria got home from work at 6:30 p.m., an hour later, she found a box sitting in the snow beside the driveway, totally soaked and falling apart. Fortunately, the stuff inside wasn’t harmed by being all wet (and it was all wet).

Online tracking tells me it was ‘delivered at side door’. We don’t have a side door. There’s a real probability that the FedEx man mistakenly delivered it to the neighbors, and the lady(?) walked over and tossed it across the drive – I saw footprints in the snow on their side of the property, right up to the edge of their fence.

The mail lady folds expensive books in order to fit them in the mailbox... and the UPS guy trundles heavy boxes up from the south forty and deposits them at the far garage door we rarely use, never mind that I’ve given explicit instructions on where deliveries should come.

The trouble with mail and package delivery personnel (and neighbor ladies[?]) is that they’re all such people! And not particularly bright (or nice) ones, at that.

Victoria started ‘Loaded Potato Soup’ in the slow cooker that morning, in preparation for a supper for Kurt, Jared, and us, too. When the soup was done cooking that evening, she put it into the blender for a few seconds to make it somewhat creamy, and then garnished it in each individual bowl with shredded cheese, bacon, and little green onions. Scrumptious!

That afternoon, Amy had a doctor’s appointment, as her cold wasn’t getting better, and she still had a fever. When their treatments weren’t helping her breathe much easier, they admitted her to the hospital. She was dehydrated, so they put her on an IV. She stayed there a couple of nights, and came home Sunday morning.

I sewed Joanna’s nightgown, finally finishing it late that night. I’m very glad I had a serger to use on that soft, stretchy fabric; it kept all the seams smooth and nice.

Before I could give Joanna her nightgown, however, I had to use Resolve on it to get some grease out of the yoke ruffle.

Grease?

Yes, grease. That, because when I was pinning it to the yoke, Larry came along and gave me a big hug. Thus, grease.

When the nightgown was done, I uploaded some photos: Squirrel, Nuthatch, & Friends

Nuthatches don’t only look funny spiraling headfirst down tree trunks (and rebar), they also have a funny little nasal ‘ank-ank’ sound they utter, especially when there is a pair of them searching for food close together. It’s their ‘keeping-track-of-each-other’ call.

But – here’s a funny: that ‘ank-ank’ noise is actually the exact same tone and note that the Vancouver Canada goose makes, albeit the former is soft and the latter is loud. Once upon a time we were camped beside the big Flathead Lake in Montana, west of Glacier National Park. I heard a nuthatch in a tree outside our camper door, and thought it was a Canada goose over on the lake! Turns out, a nuthatch up close sounds like a Canada goose far away. How ’bout that?

Saturday I started on some doll clothes for Emma’s doll. I found some teensy-weensy rickrack in a box of sewing things of Janice’s that Loren gave me; it’s the perfect size for doll clothes. The doll I originally ordered was out of stock, and the order was canceled. So I ordered this one instead:

A moment after I clicked Add to Cart, the status of the doll changed to Out of Stock. I expected to see this order get canceled, too. But that afternoon I got a notice saying my order had shipped; it was on the way!

The Mosaic Lighthouse quilt, however, seemed to have gotten stalled out on the way to Paducah, Kentucky, probably by the big snowstorm. There had been no record of its progress for 32 hours. Maybe it was in the mail truck pictured in the news after having slid off the road into a ditch deep with snow?

The quilt must arrive between January 25th and 29th. I shipped it Priority to arrive the 25th... so there is a little leeway. I should think AQS would make an exception to the deadline, if package delivery is delayed on account of the weather?

We were once headed west into Colorado, and a double-trailered package delivery truck passed us now and again, as we both stopped for fuel at various times. He was driving like he thought Interstates 80 and 76 were a cross between the Indy 500 and a demolition derby. It was the middle of the night, and there were few other vehicles on the road.

I remarked, “I sure hope nothing I’ve recently shipped is in that truck.”

Hours later, we came up over a hill in eastern Colorado and found him jackknifed in the deep median, with the rear trailer tipped over and packages strewn all over the countryside. The driver didn’t get hurt, and he didn’t hit anyone else, fortunately. (And the road was a whole lot safer for us, with him neatly deposited in the median.)

But I added to my first remark, “Now I really hope nothing I’ve recently shipped was in that truck!”

Larry has been working on Teddy’s van the last few nights. Hopefully, it will be ready to paint before too long. It’s a Ford transit wagon that can haul 15 passengers – and each seat can be laid flat for more cargo-hauling capacity. Teddy had been looking at them, but they’re quite pricey; and then he found this one that only had 236 miles on it when the owners wrecked it. So Teddy got it, and ordered the parts to repair it. The inside still looks brand-spankin’-new.

Saturday afternoon, I fixed some supper for Loren. He picked it up, since he was here cutting wood. He’s running low on wood for his fireplace, but we’ve learned there is free wood for the taking at the city dump.

Or, as they prefer to call it these days, the ♫ ♪ Transfer Station. ♪ ♫

(Smells the same, gracious moniker notwithstanding.)

I got the first doll dress cut out and started sewing it. Part of it is blue jacquard satin, and part is silver jacquard.

I like to save pictures of fancy doll dresses and try to copy them. Sometimes I wind up with a close match – and sometimes something goes awry, and I have to recreate something out of the mess, and I wind up with a brand-new invention entirely. heh

And now, here’s a Tip of the Day:

When ironing long streams of lace and tossing them off the end of the ironing board as one goes along, it is best not to have the little pitcher for one’s Rowenta Steam Station located directly under that same end of the ironing board.

Particularly if the little pitcher for the Rowenta Steam Station happens to be full of water.

You’re welcome.

That night, I uploaded photos taken on our trip to Harlan, Iowa, where we took my lighthouse quilt to have it appraised. It was a pretty winter day. This is in Blaire, Nebraska:

More photos: Trip to Harlan

We took the older five little Jackson kiddos home from church Sunday, as Teddy had dropped them off before Sunday School and then gone on to the hospital with the younger three to pick up Amy. When we got to their house, just to entertain us, I think, Teddy opened the front door and pitched out Biscuit’s favorite ball. Biscuit shot out the door and galloped out into the front lawn, which was several inches deep in snow, grabbed her ball, and went loping back.

Now that did our hearts good, to see that! The kids, still in our Jeep, were all laughing.

Teddy said, “That’s only about 50% as fast as she usually runs!” He told us that when we drove up, Biscuit heard us – but instead of barking, which still hurts her, she made her mouth into a round circle and howled, “OOoooooorrrrrrrroooooooaaaaaarrrrrr!!!!”

A nice howl is not nearly so traumatic to one’s lungs and other organs as a sharp, hard, staccato bark. ;-D

When we got home, Larry fixed pancakes. Mmmm, mmm. As Caleb once said when he was a little guy, “Daddy is a good pancake cooker!”

We were glad to see that Lawrence was able to attend both morning and evening services yesterday. He’s not so very well, but when I walked up to greet him, he smiled and asked, “How are you?” That’s just the sort of a person he is.

After church last night, we talked with Loren for a little while. Ethan, Emma, and Lyle were standing nearby. Loren was trying to remember Lyle’s name (he gets Lyle and Jeffrey mixed up)... so I pointed at his coat and said, “See? His name is embroidered on his coat.”

So we called Lyle “Weatherproof” for the rest of the evening, which made him giggle and wrinkle his cute little freckled nose.

Before taking the children home, we picked up a couple of gallons of that good Tropicana orange juice – with pulp! It has a sweeter flavor, when the pulp is left in it.

When Caleb was little, he took a few gulps of it, then made faces and picked at his teeth.

“What’s the matter?” asked Larry, trying not to laugh.

“There’s germs in this juice!” exclaimed Caleb, still grimacing and picking his teeth.

Larry gave up trying not to laugh.

Leroy, who’s four, hopped up and down in glee when he learned we were bringing orange juice. “Oh, goody!!!” he cried, “Orange juice!!!”

A friend from my quilting group, upon hearing this story, told a story of her own:

“I’m sure orange juice is a treat with 8 children! I know with 5, we had limits on how much everyone could eat, or we couldn’t have afforded to have the extras in the house! I remember one time we got company and there was a bowl of oranges on the kitchen table, and the husband ate MOST of the oranges, saying he was having a citrus craving, while my poor children watched with huge eyes as their fruit disappeared! Grocery shopping the next day, so they did get their oranges… but they have never forgotten that incident and laugh about it now, even when they are adults.”

Good grief! Isn’t that horrid, when someone has no more manners or consideration for others than that?? Just imagine doing that at a house where there were a number of children ----- doesn’t it even occur to such blockheads that they might be eating the children’s food?!!!

It surely must – but they simply don’t care. They care more about themselves, certainly.

There were similar scenes in Old Yeller where that gluttonous, rude, lazy neighbor man, Bud Searcy, would come visiting, pretending he came to help, but only setting his young daughter Lisbeth to work whilst he gobbled down any food in sight. This, while the father of the family was away on a cattle drive.

Always makes me wonder, Why doesn’t someone throttle a person like that?!

After my ranting and raving over such piggishness, my friend wrote again: “I know… a bag of oranges only lasts a few days with 5 children, having one orange a day! And there he sat… eating one after another! His wife said nothing, and neither did I, but I was sure tempted to take the bowl of oranges off the table!”

“Or at least throw the remaining one at his head!” I said indignantly.

Here’s a close-up shot of frost crystals:

More frost photos are here, and maybe a bird and a cat or two: Frost, Flora, Fauna, and Fowl

I recently came upon a tea towel a friend embroidered for us as a wedding gift, some 37 ½ years ago:

She gave us an entire week’s set of tea towels; I don’t know what has become of the six others. Probably wore them plumb out.

I’ve seen ‘memorial quilts’ made with pieces cut from embroidered tea towels, blocks of crocheting, or linen dresser scarves. Some were done in crazy-quilt style, with exquisite stitching. I’ll have to wind up with ‘nothing to do’ before I launch into a project like that, though.

I just remembered that way back when I got my ‘new-to-me’ 180 Artista Bernina, I tried out the embroidery unit by stitching out Emma’s name on a soft piece of knit (I always manage to pick the most difficult thing to practice on, somehow). Well, I’ve been saving that piece ever since, in order to appliqué it on a nightgown of that same soft knit for her.

Doll clothes first, though! I just found an odd little buckle amidst my ‘trims and stuff’, with triangular faux leather pieces on each side. I could put that on the front of a little doll jacket, I think. And here’s another big fuzzy iron-on butterfly patch... surely that would work for... something. Wheeeee, isn’t this fun??

A Cooper’s hawk just sailed into the cedar tree out front – now he flew to the brush pile on the east drive. He’s looking for a song-bird scone to go with his tea, no doubt.

It’s been snowing off and on here today, and the temperature is 27°. But the wind is gusting up to 35 mph, making it feel like 11°.

Slightly before 6:00 p.m., I received notification that my quilt had been delivered to the AQS headquarters in Paducah. Whew, now I can relax about that.

Emma’s doll, however, seems to be permanently stalled out in Bloomington, California.

Maybe the doll was carrying contraband in her purse, and has been detained for questioning? Scheduled delivery date is not until February 1. ???

The doll has now made it all the way from Mira Loma, California, to Bloomington, California, a grand distance of 17.5 miles, in just four short days. Since it’s 1,449 miles from Mira Loma to Columbus, at that rate, it will take only a mere 331.2 days to get here. Rah, rah! Hip, hip, hooray! Cheers! And all that hooey.

I had just noted that Teensy had recovered from the cat bite on his leg, and his clawed and/or bitten ears were healing, too, when he got into another scrap, and he now has a scratch bleeding on his other foot. Cats!

Furthermore, he wants on my lap – but he reeks of oil. Ugh! Why would a finicky, usually clean-as-a-whistle, cat get himself all stinky in oil somewhere in the garage??

The scratch doesn’t look too bad. He’ll be all right... if he’ll just stay out of trouble!

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