Journal: Quilting, Coffeehouses, Quilting, Graduations, & Quilting

A lady on a Facebook quilting group is traveling in China.  She just posted something she found in a grocery store there:  the label was in both Chinese and (supposedly) English.  There were first all those incomprehensible Chinese scribblings... and under that, in English, “Chicken Rude and Irresponsible.”

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...

...

...

It was Chicken Jerky.

The translator interpreted ‘jerky’ as ‘Rude and Irresponsible”.  That’s a good enough translation—if the translator knew nothing about Jerky, The Food. 

But... I saw another story, complete with picture, as was the first story, where it was rendered ‘Rude and Unreasonable’.  So that pretty well tells me it’s a fake Internet story, and at least two people had similar but different ideas, and were equally skilled with photoshop. 🙄🤪

In the comments under the story, someone wrote, “Well, chickens are fowl by nature...”

I cannot be held responsible if it’s a total fabrication; I only repeated it.  😄

Victoria sent me a picture of Violet, prettily decked out in a bib printed with roses.

“She has the sweetest face,” I responded.  Then, “How often do I say that?  And I’ll say it again.”

You know how God made the insides of baby birds’ mouths yellow in order to inspire the instinct in their parents to feed them?  (Scientific studies prove it’s true – that color does bring on the feeding instinct in birds.)  Well, he also made babies’ expressions all trusting and innocent and somehow begging for compassion, in order so we will totally put ourselves out for them!  Don’t you think?

It was sunny and windy Tuesday, with a bout of bill-paying and dishes-washing before I headed upstairs to my quilting studio. 

That afternoon I got a note from Larry:  “You want to go to Norfolk tonight to take my truck to the Peterbilt dealer?”

Now, I knew he meant, follow him there in the Jeep, and provide transportation back home again.  But he didn’t say that.

So I responded in my polite, literal fashion, as I like to do:  “All by myself?  Will anybody notice that I don’t know how to drive a truck?  Or back it up, more specifically?”

And... I got just the kind of response from him that I would expect.  He hasn’t changed much, since I first got to know him when we were both 13 years old:  “You can take your bike to ride home, too.”

So I wrote, “Should I air up the tires?” and he answered, “Naaa; but you better air up the seat.”  😄  He asked further, “Do they have a Texas Road House in Norfolk?”

(We have a gift certificate from the neighbors.)

“Nope,” I responded; “I was just looking.  But they have Sakaru Sushi House.”

“Yuck! 😝” he replied, as predicted.

So... I put venison, potatoes, carrots, and onions into a baking dish and popped it into the oven.  We would eat before we headed to Norfolk.

When we got home, I returned to working on the New York Beauty variation quilt, and kept at it ’til my eyelids were at half-mast.  I got a stack of partial blocks put together... maybe a dozen?  Didn’t count them.  If I got a dozen done, there were still two dozen to go.  Next, the arc on which will go the Venice lace... and then the curved outer corners.  Lots and lots of quarter-circle seams.  I continued with it on Wednesday.

That night after church, we dropped off John H. and Lura Kay’s gifts, and they gave us ours.  Lura Kay told me that her son Kelvin’s numbers (I never know exactly what numbers they’re talking about – numbers that tell if a person has cancer cells in their body, that’s all I know) are over 100.  It should be 10 or below.  And the spots on his liver and/or pancreas are bigger.  

The doctors have said from the beginning that it was terminal; but after that terrible battle with it throughout 2017, he was better last year, and we all got our hopes up.  So this is quite disheartening.

Thursday, Victoria sent a picture of Carolyn with the pony purse we gave her for Christmas slung over her shoulder, dolly in hand, looking like a little lady all decked out and on a mission.

That day, Carolyn knocked a picture off the wall above her bed.  It hit her radio and turned the music off, which scared her and made her cry.  When Victoria rushed in, Carrie kept saying one of her longest sentences to date:  “IT FELL OFF!  IT FELL OFF!”

The picture that fell was one of the paintings Victoria made for Violet, an 8” x 10”, not very heavy, and not directly over the crib.

Ever notice how something scary can make a kid go mum... or suddenly learn to talk in whole sentences?  😬😁

That afternoon, I met with a quilting friend at Milady Coffeehouse in Fremont.  Our mission:  to pick out some bad-tension stitches in her Christmas quilt. 

This is the quilt I did for her last year on my older HQ16 (last quilt I did on that machine), and I was having trouble with the tension.  It looked good on top... and then would often disappoint me when I’d look at the back.  Many times after starting the row perfectly, tension would change midway, before I’d get the row completed.  I’d told her of the troubles as I was going along, and, since she wanted to display it on an antique bed before putting away all her Christmas things for the year, I returned the quilt to her without redoing the bad spot, telling her I would repair it when she packed up her Christmas décor. 

But she, not wanting to put me to the trouble, kept saying it wasn’t all that bad, and I needn’t redo it.  I couldn’t quit thinking about it, though.  After all, she paid me well to do that job!  I mentioned it a few more times through the year... and then just before Christmas – and she finally agreed to let me fix it.

However, she said, “I’ll make you a deal.  Bring your seam ripper, and I’ll bring mine, and we’ll make like frogs together.  (That is, ‘rip-it, rip-it’.)  I’d be much happier if I got to do some of the work, but I can’t do it ahead of time because I don’t know where you want to rip.  Deal?  We can sit and visit and sip coffee and rip and that will save you some time and will be pleasant for me!”

That sounded like a nice time, so I agreed.

Milady is a newish coffeehouse in an old, refurbished building that used to be a big ol’ warehouse.  Now it has all sorts of almost-private little alcoves and balconies.  We sat in one that looks like a little living room, with comfortable stuffed chairs and a nifty little faux fireplace with ‘burning logs’ – and a remote control for it.  We ordered a couple of those coffee lattes where they make fancy shapes in the top with hot cream, and then we got busy.  It took a little over an hour and a half to remove the offending stitches – a whole lot longer than it had taken to put them in, that’s for sure!

After leaving the coffeehouse, I went to a big quilt shop uptown, Country Traditions, where Larry bought my Avanté.  I wandered around for a few minutes, admiring and drooling... then went on to a smaller shop, Go 2 Quilt It, on the outskirts of the town.  It was the first time I’d ever been there.  I bought a pretty piece of flannel to add to my flannel collection, which will one day be a quilt when I get enough pieces.

I drove home into a beautiful sunset with flocks of Canada geese crossing the sky.

When I got home, I set to loading the lady’s quilt onto my frame, and then quilting it.  Larry got home from work when I was half done, so I took a break and fixed some supper:  chili with Pepperidge Farm crackers, cottage cheese, orange juice, and blueberry yogurt, followed by a couple of Lotus Biscoff cookies (coffee cookies from Belgium) and a cup of Butter Cream coffee.

Then back to the Avanté I went.

By 10:00 p.m., the quilt was done.  The tension was good... but the dye lot on the bobbin thread was slightly different.  Not too noticeable; but I can see it.  Same number; slightly lighter shade.  Bah, humbug! 

The stitch regulator on my new machine is much better than it was on the old machine, so the stitches are perfectly uniform in size.  I love my ‘new’ Avanté!

I wish I would’ve had this machine a month and a half sooner! – I would’ve done a better job on that Christmas quilt.  😕  Siggghhhhhh...

After sewing several more arcs onto the New York Beauty blocks, I hit the hay.

Friday was the day of the Senior Dinner at our church school – that is, a dinner honoring the seniors who will be graduating this year.  We were invited because our oldest grandson, Aaron, is graduating.  This does not make good sense, as Larry and I just graduated a couple of years ago.  Didn’t we?  (Aaron is on the left.)

Here’s Carolyn with a doll that used to be Victoria’s.  Larry and I grinned at the picture... and laughed at Victoria’s caption:  

“Where’s the doll’s nose?”  
           -poke-  
        Doll:  😵

It happened that afternoon that my friend to whom the Christmas quilt belongs was coming to Columbus with her husband to visit his mother.  So we met at The Broken Mug coffee shop, and I gave her back her quilt.  This coffee shop is in a part of the building that used to be the old YMCA.  I’d never been there before.  Our niece supplies the shop with her scrumptious pastries.

Home again, I sewed a bit more on the New York Beauty quilt.  By bedtime, I had 35 blocks done except for the corner piece... and one block done completely, except for the pearls.

The finished size of this quilt will be 122” x 122”. 

I am looking forward to quilting it.  And then... the pearls.  That will take a while, I imagine, particularly since I like to put a little knot under the pearls fairly often, so that if one comes loose, the rest of them don’t tumble right off, too, like gazillions of descending pinballs.

Someone asked how I got the lace to lie flat on that curve.  It’s Venice lace, so it’s quite forgiving.  I used my little brass stiletto to hold the line in place where I sewed it down – closest to the fabric rays, the smaller part of the circle, right above those little lace scallops – and made sure not to stretch it at all.  The outer portion of the lace is open enough that it lays nicely, and the pearls I’ll sew on it will hold it in place.

You know, even when I come up with quilts that are intricate and complicated, it’s still infinitely more relaxing to make my own quilts than to do quilting for others.  It always seems like, if anything is going to go wrong, it can and will go wrong with a customer quilt.  Aarrgghh.  I’d rather make mistakes on my own quilts, than on someone else’s!

By Saturday evening, I had 28 curved corner pieces sewn onto the New York Beauty blocks.  There are eight more to go.

I posted these pictures on my Facebook page, and someone commented, “It needs some color.”  

Whataya bet that for every person who actually comes right out and writes it, there are ten more who think it?? 

It’s okay.  I don’t poke pins in voodoo dolls if someone doesn’t care for a quilt I’m making.  After all, every now and then even I don’t care for a quilt I’m making!  😆

We all like different things.  Hence, the huge and wonderful variety of quilts and crafts.

(But if any of the rest of you want to poke pins in voodoo dolls, make sure the doll has red stringy hair, pale brown eyes, plenty of fuchsia lipstick, a receding chin, and a bulbous nose.)

Kidding, kidding!  Just kidding.

But I wonder what that lady thinks of those elegant white wholecloth quilts people have elaborately quilted by hand – and won Best of Show ribbons for?

We have dentures heavy on our minds these days, since this coming Wednesday is the day Larry will have all his teeth removed, to be promptly replaced with dentures.  So when this showed up in Saturday’s funnies, I immediately sent it to Larry:

Sunday was Joanna’s 16^th birthday.  We gave her a leather-bound devotional by Charles H. Spurgeon, an adult coloring book with Bible verses, colored pencils, and an unpainted, unfired ceramic lighthouse – with a promise to supply the paints soon.  

After church last night, we took some smoked venison to Andrew and Hester, then came home and had some ourselves, with a few other things to go with it.

Late this afternoon I wrote to Larry, “Are you tired of venison, potatoes, carrots, and onions yet?”

“You could use chicken,” he responded.  “That way I won’t get tired of it.”

I looked in the freezer, then replied, “Too bad; no chicken.  I’m baking it with corn on the cob.”  Then I added, “You could bring home pie, or something.  Turnovers?  It would be nice to have some juice, too.”

He brought home orange juice, milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, and apple turnovers.  I got carried away and ate two.  Fortunately, I didn’t have much of anything else, so I don’t imagine it will do me any harm.

Back to the New York Beauty Variation quilt! 

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