Journal: Quilting and Bug-Hunting

Last Monday, Hester sent a video of Keira.  Hester had put some little baby snacks on Keira’s high chair tray for the first time.  Keira reached out, picked one up, put it in her mouth, and ate it like it was old hat.  (Not AN old hat, you understand; just ... old hat.)

While she used her right hand, there were a couple of little snacks in her left fist, for backup, you know.

I wrote back to Hester, “She’s doing good!  She knows exactly what to do with those little things.  😍”

Hester replied, “I was so surprised, the first one I set down for her she picked up and ate like it was the most normal thing!”

“She’d just been waiting and planning and hoping to do that, for so loooong!  😁” I said.

“She does really watch us eating!  lolol” answered Hester.

Larry went back to work that day for the first time since his dental surgery.  But he still had enough oomph when he got home to finish another wall section in the addition.

Behind the far door on the right is the little office... and in the office is my oak roll-top desk.

We have a king-size bed, with a large headboard with shelves and a mirror and lights and big posts.  There’s a matching bureau and a big dresser, also with mirror and shelves – but the problem is, there aren’t enough tall walls in the addition to accommodate tall furniture!  What to do, what to do.  Helllllppp! 

That evening, I trimmed the 40 New York Beauty blocks.  Next, I put together two sets of two for the pillow shams, and then the top row for the quilt.

And that would be all I would do on the quilt until I got the taxes done; Larry had brought home his W-2 Form.  Don’t you just hate interruptions when you’re on a roll??!  Still, we would be getting a refund, as I made a heap of donations; so it would be well worth my time.

Late Tuesday morning, Larry was finally able to see the dentist.  The dentures were realigned, and the doctor gave him a prescription for more antibiotics, as Larry thought he might have another abscess, or perhaps sinus infection, for he’d caught my cold.

When he got back to town, he went to work for a few hours... then tried working in the addition when he got home.  He started the wood-burning stove and got a crackling fire going in it, but it was sooo cold outside – several degrees below zero, that stove just couldn’t cut the mustard.  He put up a few pieces of wood and then threw in the towel, because the cold was hurting his still-healing mouth.  Plus, he just didn’t feel well.

I got the taxes done and e-filed that day.  We’ll be getting a refund, though not nearly as much as we got last year.  Better than having to pay in, though!

Taxes can be so complicated.  When Larry owned the vehicle rebuilding shop and bought and sold all types of vehicles, it was all beyond me.  We hired a CPA each year.  Nowadays, it would be quite simple, but I make it a little more complicated by itemizing all our deductions – donations I make throughout the year.  TurboTax figures it all out for me, after I mark it down.  This takes a while.  One of these days, the house will be empty, and I won’t have anything else to donate!  ha!

New tax laws and regulations... a little less income in 2018 than 2017... and a few less donations... and we wound up with only a third of the refund we had last year.  But... without tithes and donations, we’d have had to pay in.  So we’re glad for that, at least.

Almost every time I went to town last year, I grabbed a few big bags of unnecessary stuff to take to the Goodwill.  I have a lot of unnecessary stuff!  There are still a couple of corners in the basement that need to be gone through, and a large cubbyhole in the bathroom.  But one of these days, I’m going to be down to nothing but “I Want to Keep That!” stuff.

I sewed for a little while, getting a few more rows put together, before heading for the feathers.

Hester sent another video of Keira.  She has learned to sit up!  In the video, Hester stacked those soft fabric blocks... then they tipped over.  And here’s another sign of good progress:  Keira’s quick reaction when the blocks fell – she caught one!

There’s less and less sign of her scary start in life (2 lbs., 8 oz.), right along.

Hester told us, “She has started yelling ‘Mama’ when I walk away from her. 😅 🙈 🙉 She’s been doing it for a while but it’s really escalated the last two days.  Furthermore, that high-pitched noise makes the cat come running, which Keira loves.  😺”

It was cold last week.  By 1:00 p.m. Wednesday, the temperature finally made it up to 0°.  I have cousins in North Dakota and Montana, and some of them reported an actual temperature of -40°!  The wind chill was approaching -60°.  Aaiiiyiiiieeee.

By early Thursday afternoon, the dishes were done, clothes were in various phases of put-away, drying, or washing, and the bird feeders were filled.  I headed up to the quilting studio, glad there were banisters on the stairway.  Earaches can make one dizzy!

That day, Keith picked up his new truck in Kansas City.  He’d just sunk $4,000 into his old truck, when the engine ‘blew up’.  (I’ll explain that better as soon as Larry gets home and explains it to me.)

Well, now Keith has a newer Peterbilt (the old one was a Sterling) that gets enough better fuel mileage to help defray part of the cost.

Late that night, I finished putting together the center of the quilt.  I had 160 hours in the quilt so far.

A friend asked how I kept track, and did I subtract those times I took breaks, and so forth.

It’s an inexact science.  When I first started timing myself in the making of quilts, I forgot more often than I remembered, sometimes forgetting for days on end.  So I’d give up and try again on the next quilt.  Nowadays, I remember quite well, and actually often watch the clock until the minute hand is either straight up or straight down before I stop for one reason or another, and do the same when I return to the project.  When I’m not sure, I choose to err on the side of less, rather than more hours.  I figure that’ll make up for those moments when I sit and stare at something I’ve done, asking myself, What on earth were you thinking?!

I have long intended to use the stitch count option on my longarms, along with timing the quilting, so I could better know what to charge, or how much I was making per stitch, as compared to by the hour.  I have never once remembered.

I used to time myself when doing homework:  Page 35 of this Accelerated Algebra book took me 30 minutes... while page 155 took an hour!  

{My explanation:  I wasn’t gettin’ dumber, huh-uh, nosirree.  That stuff was a-gettin’ harder!!}  😆 

Thursday, I started on the borders.  Here’s a mitered corner on the first border:

A quilting friend, knowing I plan to sew pearls on the lace on this quilt, wondered, “How will you be able to wash it with all those pearls on it?  It will have to go to a dry cleaner.”

It will be washable, pearls and all, though it may have to be done in a commercial washer on account of the size.  The pearls won’t add much weight, as they are glossy plastic, as opposed to glass.  The packets of pearls, held in one hand, don’t weigh much more than a feather.

The 27(+/-) yards of Venice lace added some heft to it, though.

Dry-cleaning is generally not recommended for quilts, as the chemicals can damage cotton fibers.  Of course, quilts made of dry-clean-only fabrics must be dry-cleaned.  (But never, ever dry-clean an antique quilt!)

Another lady asked how long it would take me to sew those 10,000 pearls on the quilt.

“It will take me exactly forever and a day to sew on all the pearls,” I told her.  “I am not a fast pearl sewer-onner!  😏”

Tiger has decided he’s Teensy:  he keeps jumping into the tub and staring at the faucet, then at me.  I turn it on, as I do for Teensy, who refuses to drink out of his water bowl.   But Tiger, evidently thinking, Help!  She’s filling the tub! bails out, rubs around my ankles, and purrs.

Once upon a time, I thought it would be a funny idea to put a huge, soft, rubber tarantula on the shift knob on Daddy’s TravelAll. 

That was a mistake.

Daddy didn’t like spiders.  Tarantulas were even worse.

Daddy climbed into the TravelAll... started the engine... grabbed the gearshift...

Lucky for me, I was watching, and realized exactly what he was about to do, about one split second before he did it.

He threw it. 

He threw it with all his might and main.

And he threw it backwards, toward the back of the TravelAll. 

I was sitting in the middle seat of that TravelAll.  I ducked, in the nick of time.  That rubber tarantula went sizzling through my hair, and didn’t even start to arc downwards before it hit the far back window with a SPLAT.

Now, Daddy didn’t mean to throw the thing at me; his only thought was to throw it away from himself.

By the time the critter hit the rear window, he’d realized it was only rubber.  This cheered him up, uh, not much, since he then came to the quick conclusion that his young daughter was the culprit in the shenanigan.

“What if I would’ve reached for the shifter while I was driving?!” he exclaimed, peering at me in the rearview mirror.

“Well, but,” I tried not to smirk, “you had to shift it before you started driving!”

He started to argue... and then my mother accidentally snickered.  I grinned – and in a few moments Daddy reluctantly chuckled.

But I didn’t put rubber tarantulas in his path again.

We had some excitement during the night when, at about 2:00 a.m., I discovered that the chimney that runs from the wood-burning stove in the basement up through our closet, on up through my quilting studio, and then into the roof, was waaaay too hot.  Too hot to comfortably rest one’s hand on.

I’d gone in the closet to put away some clothes and to get out the next day’s attire.  (Yes, 2:00 a.m. is a normal time for me to do that.)  Larry won’t be teasing me for a while now, I’ll betcha, for getting the next day’s clothes ready, the night before, huh-uh nosirree, boy!

My sweaters and skirts, folded on shelves beside the chimney, were hot, hot, hot.  Fortunately, I found this just before Larry would have reloaded the stove with wood; it was almost down to nothing but coals.  We moved the clothes to provide some ventilation, got a hammer, fire extinguisher, and phone handy, checked the outside chimney, put a thermometer in the closet, and watched, waited, and rechecked for an hour and a half.  No smell of smoke... no sign of anything smoldering... and it slowly, slowly cooled down.  We put a smoke detector in the closet, and finally decided it was safe to go to bed.

The chimney was okay Friday, though it stayed overly warm for hours.  We will not again use the old wood-burning stove.  Evidently the once-repaired chimney flue cracked, and heat got trapped between flue and outer chimney, which fortunately is brick and mortar, with plaster on the outside.

I think my hands have stopped shaking and my heart is not pounding quite so hard now.

I headed to my quilting studio as soon as I put all those stacks of clothes away again.

I spent a good deal of the day cutting triangles for border #2.  I was puttering along a bit slowly, because I just didn’t feel so great, what with this nasty ol’ cold.

Realizing the furnace had scarcely come on all day, nor had I needed the radiant heater, I checked the outdoor temperature.  It was 56°!  Wow.  Not very many hours before, it had been 0° or colder.

That afternoon, Hannah posted a video of the Middle School in town being torn down.  I hadn’t known they were going to do that!  That used to be Kramer High, where Loren, Lura Kay, and G.W. went to high school.  It was my Jr. High, grades 7-9, where Larry used to slip notes into my locker!

Some quilting ladies and I were discussing housecleaning.  I don’t dislike it; at least, I must not, since every time I launch in, I immediately find myself singing, humming, or whistling.  And I do like everything to be nice and neat.

A friend of mine regularly (and with great difficulty, sometimes including bodily harm) pulls her heavy appliances out from the walls and clean/dusts/scrubs/sweeps/mops behind and under them.  Once she pulled the refrigerator out jusssst far enough... climbed onto the counter... hopped down behind the fridge... cleaned...

And couldn’t get back out.

I, feeling rather blank about all this behind-the-appliance cleaning, asked her, “Why do you do that?!!” 

She looked back at me just as blankly, and finally replied, “Because it was dirty!”

Well, but, ... !  Who would ever know?!  And besides, ****there are quilts to make!!!!

If I ever have to move out of this house, I guess I’ll need that lady to come clean behind and under and around all the heavy appliances.  If she’s not still stuck behind the refrigerator, that is.

That same friend once told me to stop putting pictures of my cats on my website, or people would not want me to do any quilting for them.

A)             It’s better to be honest about one’s pets when one does work such as quilting for the public, in case someone is allergic.

B)             If she somehow managed to erase all the pictures on the web that show animals curled up, walking on, sitting on, or playing on quilts or fabric, she’d take down half the Internet.

It sure was taking me a long time to get all these odd-sized triangles cut!  I needed 212 triangles.  By Friday night, I was almost ¾ done.  I can do it... I can do it... I can do it... 

I finally finished cutting... cutting... cutting... Saturday afternoon.  Those triangles measure 8.75” tall by 4.4375” at the base.  Why and how do I get myself into these things??!

Answer:  Because that’s the size that looked pretty, that’s why.

By bedtime, I had one side of the pieced border done.  It’s folded here, so it looks like two rows:

I was in my quilting studio... walked out for a bit... walked back in -- and noticed several tiny black dots on the white and cream fabric of that quilt draped over my frame.  It almost looked like a small splatter of oil, and when I looked closer, I could see that the spots were very fresh, as the largest one was still spreading a wee bit. 

What in the world?? 

Squash bug

I looked up to see what could possibly be overhead that could have splattered down on it – and lo and behold, there on the fan/light pull chain lurked a big ol’ fat squash bug! 

AAArrrrrrgggghhhh, errrrggg, aaaccchhh. 

You can’t just smack those things; they’ll stink up an entire room.  So I grabbed a flyswatter, put it right next to him, slid it up the chain – and the squash bug, as expected, stepped onto the flyswatter.  I gave him an all-expense-paid trip to The Great Outdoors. 

Next, I found the stain-remover pen that my brother had given me, and dabbed all the spots.  That removed the worst of them, but not entirely; so I trotted downstairs for a white cloth, dampened it with hot water, and got some ivory bar soap.  The spots were gone in short order, thankfully. 

Horrid ol’ squash bug! Now I hate them for more than just their obnoxious stench. 

There’s something to be said for living in Alert, Nunavat, Canada, the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world!  No squash bugs.

Stink bug

Anytime I talk about squash bugs or post a picture of one, numerous persons hasten to inform me that those are stink bugs.  This time, one person even informed me that this is a boxelder bug!  

First, squash bugs are longer and more oblong than stink bugs.  There are numerous types of stink bugs, and squash bugs and stink bugs are indeed in the same family; but the squash bug is always longer.  Here’s one of the types of stink bugs commonly found in the States:  à

Squash bugs eat squash and pumpkins (hence the name), while stink bugs prefer tomatoes, peaches, apples... and some field crops.  

Squash bugs will eat any part of the plant.  Sometimes they start with the main stem, and kill the whole plant straightaway.  They’re pests, with no known good attributes ---- well, they make good meals for chickens, I guess!  😃  (I had no sooner made that last statement than a friend decided she would never again eat free-range chicken.)  😆

Boxelder bug

The boxelder bug is totally different from either of these:  ß

Larry’s doing pretty good, though still getting used to his dentures, and his mouth is still a bit sore.  He caught the cold I have, unfortunately.

A friend and I were discussing our children, reminiscing about things that happened... 

When Caleb was a baby, we finally (and belatedly) bought a twin stroller.  Sure could’ve used that thing, during the previous 12 ½ years!  12 ½ years earlier, Hannah had been born... and Keith was only 12 months old.  But... we had a nice (or at least what was considered ‘nice’ in 1980) stroller from Sears, a cheap umbrella stroller from K-Mart, and we usually went for walks together, so...  And when the next few babies came along, at one-year intervals, we had a wagon... big wheels... tricycle... and so a couple of kids could be pedaling in front of me, and I could push the umbrella stroller with one hand and pull the wagon with two and sometimes three kids in it.  I was tough, back then!

Anyway, we got a twin stroller.  Lydia and Caleb would ride in it.  Lydia was totally delighted with it.  She sat behind Caleb.  “I’m like a caboose!” she announced, giggling.

Now and then, we’d have Hester and Lydia in it.  Those two little girlies couldn’t quit giggling throughout the entire ride.

So for Christmas that year, I got Hester and Lydia – what else? --- Twin doll strollers!  With two new baby dolls for each of them.

Wow, you should’ve seen those little girls’ eyes when they opened up their boxes.

Lydia, 2 ½ and big for her age, followed Hester, 4 ½ and little dinky, everywhere she went. 

So there were the little girls, pushing their twin doll strollers up and down the hall, into the nursery, back around into my bedroom, on through the little bathroom that connected with the kitchen, into the living room, the music room, and down the hall again.  Hester was in the lead... Lydia immediately behind her.  (I had given careful instructions about not getting so close that she bumped her sister’s heels; that hurts!)  So there they went, trot-trot-trottity-trot, with Lydia peering diligently over the stroller awning to see that she didn’t get too close.  Every little sashay or swerve Hester took, Lydia took too.  If Hester stopped and repositioned a doll, Lydia repositioned one of hers, whether it needed it or not.  If Hester tucked a blankie around a doll, Lydia did the same.

At the end of the hall, in a slight recessed area beside the nursery door, was the baby swing, often with Caleb in it, swinging, and happily watching the procession of dolls and sisters.  Right across the hall from him on this particular day, I was standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror, curling my hair, and chattering to the baby.

The little girls made another circuit. 

As Hester turned to go into the nursery, she cut the corner too tightly, and the rear wheel of her stroller got caught on a leg of the swing, bringing her to a sudden stop.  Lydia, fortunately paying attention, came to an abrupt halt, too.  She waited patiently while Hester extracted wheel from swing leg.

Once loose, Hester proceeded on her way, glancing back at me and saying, “Whew!  I’d better watch what I’m doing, here!”

Lydia proceeded on, too – but she made a big enough circle that her wheel didn’t get caught.  Nevertheless, little copycat that she was, she glanced back at me from the same spot Hester had done, and said, “Whew!  I’d better watch what Hester’s doing, here!”

I try not to laugh right in my children’s faces.

I tried.

Saturday there was bad fog throughout the area.  A car wreck near Fremont left four people dead – a mother, 8 months pregnant and expecting her first little girl, and her 3 boys, ages 7, 8, and 10.  So tragic.  Fog can be so deadly.

We were on The Million Dollar Highway late one night, heading back to our cabin in Ouray from Silverton, with a vehicle full of children.  Clouds descended... and suddenly we were in pea-soup fog.  Couldn’t see the front end of the hood.  They’d been redoing the road, and had not as yet painted stripes.  There are rarely any guardrails on that road, and Red Mountain Creek is a loooooong ways down. 

I rolled my window down and found I could see the edge of the road, if we didn’t get too far away from it.  So we crept along at 15 mph (the only vehicle on the road, fortunately), and I kept Larry apprised at how far from the side we were. 

Aaiiiiiiiyiiiiiieeeeee.

Our guardian angels would have snow-white hair by now, if angels aged!

Larry drove the VW Touareg to church last night, because after the service he was meeting a man at Sapp Bros. truck stop, and the man was going to buy it.  We are glad to have one less car in our driveway now.

In looking through a few old journals in search of something I found this little story from shortly before we moved out here to the country, written on March 24, 2003:

Friday, I packed bunches of boxes from the hall closet – sheets, pillowcases, pillows, towels, cloths, pads, you name it.  I tell you, those closets held a lot of stuff.  Hannah, Aaron, and Joanna came and kept me company, and they are very good company indeed.  Baby Joanna was smiling and cooing…did I mention that she’s a beautiful baby?  Aaron is talking more and more all the time.  Have I told you lately how smart he is?  😊

When they arrived, Hannah helped Aaron into the house first, then went back to get Joanna out of the stroller.

Aaron always comes rushing to find me.  “Hi?” he says questioningly, looking here and there.  “Hi?”  He peeks into another room.  “Hi?”  He trots on down the hall.  “Hi?”

“I’m right in here,” I call, and he soon locates me, generally all surrounded by boxes.

He stands and looks things over for a minute.  Then, “Hi,” he says in a declarative demeanor.

“Hi,” I responded, grinning at him.

He turned and pointed at the door.  “Mama,” he told me.

“Is your Mama coming in too?” I asked.

He nodded.  “Beebee,” he added.

“Is she getting the baby?” I inquired, and he nodded again, pleased I understood.

“How did you get here?” I queried.

“RRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRR!!!” explained Aaron.

“Oh, you rode your firetruck?” I guessed, and he beamed at me; I was right on the money; he’d ridden his foot-powered firetruck.

Just think:  that little boy is graduating this year.

Before Larry got home, I got hungry.  I wished for tacos, but there were no taco ingredients in the house.  So I fixed corn on the cob and had applesauce as a chaser.  A while later, still hungry, I peered in the freezer... and decided to bake some ancient-grain-encrusted cod.

I know, I know; that’s the wrong way around.  But... that’s the way it worked out.

Now, I didn’t really think Larry would be able to eat the fish, what with that crunchy coating on it; but neither did I want him crying his eyes out if he arrived home and found me eating it, with none for him.  So I baked a pieced for him, too.

Whataya know, he was able to eat it!  And he was quite happy about it, too.  He likes that stuff just as much as I do.

Tonight I’m fixing potatoes, carrots, and venison.  It’ll be done soon.  The house already smells scrumptious!  If we finish eating quickly enough, I should have a little time to work on the next pieced border on the New York Beauty quilt.  I’d better check the temperature on that meat.  Did you know that venison steaks should only be cooked to 135°-140°?  Higher than that, and you’ll have dried-out venison.

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

P.S.:  (By the way, that friend is not still stuck behind her refrigerator.  Her husband managed to wiggle it out far enough to allow her to squeeeeeeze back out.)

.