Here’s Teensy, snuggled up in my fleece
blanket. He loves fleece.
A quilting friend is in the hospital in West
Virginia. A month ago, she was carrying
a cake in a glass dish, fell on her porch, and landed on the broken shards with
her knee, creating a very large gash.
Turns out, the ER didn’t get all the glass
out – there was one very large chunk that they sewed right in there.
So now she has MRSA and a Staph infection,
and has been in the hospital for several weeks on high-dosage antibiotic IVs,
and will be there for another week, perhaps.
One day last night, she thought she was
having a heart attack, with chest pains and difficulty breathing. Turns out, it was from the cleaner the
janitorial crew used when mopping her room; she had a bad reaction to it. You’d think they’d use cleaners that wouldn’t
kill the patients, in hospitals!
There’s a convenience store in our town in
which I cannot set foot after 9:30 p.m., because that’s when they mop. Ugh, the smell is terrible! Makes my
eyes, nose, and throat burn, and if I don’t get out fast, my head
throbs. What in the world is it?! Smells like a combination
of turpentine, bleach, and sour milk.
And somehow that concoction is supposed to clean the place??
Their coffee is atrocious, too. I think they make it with the discarded mop
water. 😜😝
When I was little, exploratory surgery was
all the rage in certain elite cliques and factions. This was ‘open’ surgery back then, as opposed
to the laparoscopic surgery that is more often done today.
My father generally had something to say
about most topics, and ‘exploratory surgery’ was no exception, especially after
some doctor wanted to do it on him, for no clearly explained reason.
Daddy, upon turning the doctor down flat,
told us, “I once performed exploratory surgery on a frog when I was in school,
and it didn’t help the frog at all.”
Then, pretending to be the doctor deep in the
midst of the surgery, and in quite a surprised tone, “Mr. Riddlesdorf, did you
know you have a stomach?!”
Further, he said that he never had liked it
when people moved furniture around (there once was a time he wound up in the
closet in the middle of the night with pants legs and shirt sleeves wrapped around
his head, after my mother moved the furniture around in their bedroom) – and he
was afraid the doctor would decide to move his organs around, figuring he would
be tired of their location by then.
And ... “Mr. Riddlesdorf, we turned your
heart around. It was saying dub-lub, and that’s backwards.”
And on and on.
Continuing with a more appetizing
subject... When we have waffles left
over from Sunday, we often have them for dessert the next few days. Yummy!
This week, they were so good, the leftovers were gone in two days
flat. I had half of one for breakfast
Tuesday morning, with a couple of fresh farm eggs (from the neighbors’
chickens) atop it.
The butterflies were out in droves that day,
the white hostas were starting to bloom, and the neighbors’ animals that we were
caring for while they were away were doing well.
That day, I went on
working on my customer’s blue and white quilt.
It was sunny and 85°, with a heat index of 88°. There was a steady wind of 2 mph, with gusts
up to 12 mph. Visibility was 9.9 miles;
the barometer was at 30.06 in; humidity was 57%, and the dew point was 67°. There was no rain in the immediate forecast,
which was okay, since we’d gotten 1 ½” early the previous morning.
I could be a weathercaster
when I grow up!
It was Teddy’s 36th
birthday that day. Larry got him a pair
of multi-tool pliers, and we tucked some $$$ in a card and took it to him that
evening.
By the time I turned off the quilting machine
that night, the fifth row of the blue and white quilt was done.
I finished editing pictures from my
great-niece’s wedding before heading for the feathers.
Wednesday, I went into the back
yard to see if the peaches were ripe.
They weren’t, really, but I picked a few anyway. They can ripen on the table – and at least the
bugs and birds won’t make them land on the ground and spoil.
Then I trotted up the hill to check on the
neighbors’ goats and chickens, camera in hand.
One of the nannies will be giving birth soon, so we check on them a
little more often than usual.
It was a beautiful day –
76° with a slight breeze, bright and sunny. The goats and chickens were fine, and I put
four more eggs into our refrigerator.
Then... back to the quilting studio I
went. Would I be able to finish the quilt
that day? Our midweek church service was that night... and I couldn’t stay
up ’til all hours afterwards, because Thursday I would be taking my things to
the State Fair in Grand Island.
I bought a red-vinyl-sided wagon in which to
haul all my stuff. It’s too difficult, carrying two or three big quilts,
several pillows – and last year, a huge, heavy shag rug of double knit, with a
canvas back with non-slip rubber applied to it. Wow, that thing weighed a
ton. And we had to carry it a hundred miles when we picked it up (with
me in sandals that were making blisters on my feet), because we couldn’t drive
right up to the building, as we do when we’re dropping the stuff off.
No, it was a gazillion miles we had to
carry that stuff. A gazillion and one.
I never exaggerate.
That afternoon, I ran out of the 60# Bottom
Line blue thread I was using in the bobbin.
No problem, I thought, I’ll just finish with the Signature 40#
blue thread I’m using on top. It was
the same color; the slight difference in weight would never be noticed on that
flowered backing.
I wound another bobbin and got on with it.
But one can’t get nearly as much thread on a
bobbin with it’s the heavier 40# as when it’s the much finer 60# thread. The bobbin soon ran out again, and I had to
refill it.
When I saw how much thread one bobbin used
off of the big cone of Signature thread, and knew that there were still one and
a half rows to go on the quilt, I worried that I’d run out of thread. And if I did, it would be late that night,
when the one and only quilt shop in town that sells longarm thread (no cones;
only spools, at that) would be closed.
So off I went to Sew What for thread.
I bought their last two spools of Gütermann
40# blue thread, and then, fearing that wouldn’t be enough, another spool of
40# YLI. All three are long-staple, 100%
cotton thread... and expensive.
When I got home, I discovered that the YLI
thread has some sort of waxy finish, making it stiff and springy. I decided to use it in the bobbin.
As it turned out, I
probably hadn’t needed more thread.
Although I used up almost half of the spool of YLI, there was still a
lot on my original cone of thread. I
didn’t use the Gütermann at all.
By 3:00 a.m., I had completed the
last row on the quilt.
I took it off the frame and trimmed it. I would check for threads that needed to be
clipped and take pictures of it in natural lighting the next day.
Thursday, I got up earlier than
usual and prepared to take my things to the State Fair in Grand Island. I
thought I might very well be glad to have gotten that wagon, because Larry wasn’t
able to take the day off, so I wouldn’t have my trusty pack mule along (his own
description of himself, heh).
An elderly friend said to me, “Those little
red wagons are nice to have, but they’ll never replace the pack mule.” hee hee
It rained all morning, giving us an inch and
a fourth. I watched AccuWeather as I got
ready to go, and saw that the storm bands were moving east, and the rain was
supposed to let up around noon. I waited
until then to load everything in the Jeep in order to avoid getting quilts,
table runner, placemats, mug rug, fabric nesting bowls, and pillow sham wet.
Shortly after noon, I headed southwest.
As I drove, I could see
the storm clouds billowing to the east.
On the radio, I learned that the storm had intensified and was throwing
down hailstones an inch in diameter. But
directly overhead, I had blue skies.
There was no shortage of
ORTs (Obligatory Red Trucks) that day. The
multiple photos of red trucks are because, before I realized I was doing it, a
friend teased me about the pictures I often took of them. Thereafter, I resolved to take as many photos
of red trucks as possible, entirely for said friend’s benefit. 😅
And, just for a bit of cream, red trucks spice up the scenery quite
nicely.
At 12:50 p.m., Larry called. I didn’t hear my phone (it’s on its last leg
and no longer rings, and sometimes it doesn’t vibrate, either). Next, he emailed me. My tablet chimed, but since I was driving, I
didn’t look at it. At 1:02 p.m., I picked
up my phone to check for calls. Sure
enough, he’d called. I called him back.
He’d gotten enough work
done that morning that he’d decided he could go with me! “Where are you?” he asked.
“A little too far,” I told
him. I was at Clarks, and if I returned
home, we’d be late getting to Grand Island.
The doors were going to be locked by 3:00 p.m. So... he went back to work, and I proceeded
on to Grand Island, wishing he would have told me sooner. Siggghhhh...
The Sunbonnet Sue quilt
and the New York Beauty quilt got checked in at the Pinnacle Bank Expo Center,
one of the main exhibit halls at the fairgrounds. The other things went to the Fonner Park
Concourse, where textile arts are exhibited.
I got home at a quarter
’til five. It was a 140-mile
round trip – an extra 20, since a nearby bridge over the Loup River is still
out after being washed away in those awful floods back in March.
The sun had been shining
all afternoon, and the deck was dry, so I took pictures of my customer’s quilt out
there. They always look prettiest in
natural light. Larry had power-washed it (the deck, not the quilt!) just
a few days earlier, so it was all bright and fresh.
I trotted up the lane to check on the
neighbors’ animals... fed the goats some pieces of peaches (they love that)...
gave the chickens some cherry tomatoes that had fallen off the vines... picked
some things in their garden (they told us to keep anything we find that’s ready
to pick)... picked a bunch of peaches from our tree... baked a French baguette
(from Schwan’s frozen food) and had a couple of piping-hot slices with butter,
honey, and apricot preserves, and a couple of fresh peaches for dessert (mmmm,
yummy!).
A friend mentioned that
she likes peach pie – any type of fruit pie. Another friend agreed, but added, “Any pie, that is,
except mince.”
Mincemeat! That reminded me of an
episode involving my blind friend Rita:
Many years ago, I went to visit Rita.
She gladly welcomed me in, as always. We sat down at the table, and then
she informed me that she’d just made some ‘apple crisps’ – only really it was
mincemeat, made mostly from green tomatoes from her garden. Thus saying,
she dished out a big helping onto a saucer and slid it over to me.
It looked good.
Looks can be deceiving.
I took a bite... tried valiantly not to gag,
glad my friend was blind, and worked it over into one cheek so that I could
ask, “Bay I gibb a dink, beeze?”
“Sure,” she said, and rushed to the
refrigerator for a jug of cold water while I grabbed a glass and a napkin – the
latter for unobtrusively depositing the cheekful into. I discarded it
into the garbage ((silently)) and sat back down. I poured myself a glass
of water – and drank the whole works.
Then I klink-klinked my spoon on the plate
for a little while... carefully cut off the corner from whence I’d taken the
bite... and then, ever so stealthily, slid that piece of mincemeat pie back
into the serving dish.
Things go wrong with Rita’s cooking now and
again; no one is ever sure exactly what.
I’d barely reseated myself before she came to
life.
“Oh, you’re done!” she exclaimed. “Do you want another piece??” and just as I
was gulping and protesting, “No, no!” she scooped up the very helping she’d
once given me, the very helping I’d returned to the dish, and deposited it
right back on my saucer.
I’ve suspected ever since that Rita can see.
A long, long time later, I told her this
story, and asked if she’d known. She was laughing so hard she
could hardly answer, but she assured me, no indeedy, she’d been totally
clueless.
And then she said, said she, “So! Would
you like some apple crisps?” hee hee
A lady posted
pictures of a quilting frame and carriage her family had given her for her
birthday, asking for advice. There was a
cat on the frame, checking it out... so I wrote, “The main thing is,
move the cat before you begin, and, above all, never mention the word ‘hammock’
to him whilst there’s a quilt on the frame.”
🤣
Shortly thereafter, Hannah
posted a picture of crocheting she was doing as they traveled, while
vacationing in Colorado.
That reminded me of
the time we were traveling with six-door pickup
and trailer of some sort or another. Victoria
was 1 ½, so Hannah would’ve been 17 ½. She had her crocheting with her. (Hannah, not Victoria.) We all got in the truck after visiting with an
aunt and uncle, started driving – and Hannah suddenly cried, “Hey, someone’s
unraveling my crocheting!”
Everyone
stared, feeling a bit blank. Then
someone (Hannah? me?) yelled, “Stop, stop!”
Larry
obligingly stopped.
The
yarn, it seemed, went out the pickup door and back... back... back... to the
trailer wheels, where it had somehow gotten itself wrapped around a hub. Larry untangled it and brought the wad back to
Hannah.
Amazingly,
it wasn’t too much the worse for wear.
We
proceeded on, less dramatically.
That evening, I edited the pictures I’d taken
during the day, and posted them:
Friday, I filled the bird
feeders (the term ‘eat like a bird’ really means, ‘eat your body weight, over
and over and over again’)... watered the porch plants... and fixed myself an
easy-over farm-fresh-egg sandwich on slices of another one of those piping-hot-just-from-the-oven
French baguettes. Mmmm, mmm.
Next, I went to visit the neighbors’ animals.
The goats, expecting bits of peaches or
some other treat, they come running out of the little barn to greet me,
bringing the roosters flappity-flap-flap along with them. The goats are
lively and fun to watch. Since I’ve been
giving them treats, they’ll hold still long enough for me to pet them a
bit. At least one of the nannies will soon be having a baby.
I gave the chickens a little handful of
cherry tomatoes; that sure gets them in a frenzy. Almost like catnip for the cats.
I’ve discovered a good many of my photos of
the chickens and roosters are slightly blurry.
Those feathered fowl move fasssst! Next time I try taking pictures of them, I’ll
set my camera on sports mode and just hold down the shutter button. 😅
I added four more eggs to our collection, and
picked some squash, cherry tomatoes, and big tomatoes.
I did a bit of cleaning in the kitchen, and
after that I got started on another table runner for my friend and customer, as
she was disappointed that the quilting didn’t show up as well as she had expected
on the first one.
This time I would make
it with two layers of wool batting, instead of the one layer of cotton batting
I had previously used, and do the quilting with contrasting thread. I was actually a bit afraid this would
happen; I was copying a picture she’d sent me, and I could see that they’d
taken pictures as I do with a far light in a corner, no light overhead, and a
low camera angle to show the quilting, which was done with matching
thread. This makes the quilting quite subtle, and not well seen in bright
lighting. Table runners are usually done with thin batting so things one
might sit on them don’t tip over.
But... since the quilting is what she
particularly wants to see, I would make it noticeable! I would go for ‘striking’ this time, as
opposed to ‘subtle’. I pulled the pattern out of the garbage (hadn’t
expected to do another one! – but now I’d better save that pattern, in case I
need to use it again)... squeezed a few more pieces out of the leftover
fabric... and got on with it. It didn’t
take as long as it had the first time, since I had worked everything out
already.
By nighttime, the top of the table runner was
sewn together. Those curves take a while
to get together perfectly.
Saturday, I pulled out all the thread that might work on that table
runner, and wasn’t happy with any of it.
So off I went to Country Traditions in Fremont for some dark charcoal
thread. They now have more thread than
they used to, and even have a couple of racks of cones, as opposed to the
smaller spools that used to be their only longarm thread. A trip to Fremont and back takes over two
hours.
Home again, I loaded backing, batting, and
top, and launched into the quilting.
The trouble with contrasting thread is that
it makes every little misdirected stitch show up in stark relief! This was the first time I ever used Mettler
poly longarm thread. It worked fine.
It was 2:00 a.m. when I finished the table
runner, binding and all. More photos
here:
The two layers of wool made some of the
feathers look and feel like trapunto. Now let’s hope the lady likes it!
One of the things I love about wool is that
if it has gotten the slightest bit squished in use, it will get all fluffy and
nice again as soon as it is washed and dried.
Plus, the new wool battings (Quilters’ Dream and Hobbs Heirloom, in
particular) have a whole lot less shrinkage than wool batting of old, which
could be rather horrid, especially with the cheap scratchy stuff. 😝
Quilters’ Dream is my favorite, and their
wool is sooo nice. Did you know they have 12 different kinds of batting,
and some of those kinds have 2 or 3 different lofts?
A couple of people on Facebook have already
inquired into buying the first table runner. My price quote seems to have
stunned them into silence, however. heh
I think, rather than risk disappointing
anybody else with it, I’ll make a small duffle bag out of it.
Now I can quilt the Bear Paw quilt! 😃
Sunday was Jeremy and Lydia’s
11th anniversary. We gave
them a big, dark, ornate clock that matches their furniture.
Our Sunday afternoon lunch
consisted of butter croissants, thick-sliced turkey, mozzarella cheese, Colby
cheese, and bananas, with mocha drinks.
Earlier today, I went on an excursion to
town, first to Dollar General for packaging tape, then to the post office to
mail the boxes (taped with the just-purchased packaging tape) containing the
blue and white quilt and the Freeform table runner.
My midafternoon lunch consisted of peaches
from our peach tree.
This afternoon I was thinking in dismay, Well,
I guess I’ll have to get a new laptop – because the touchpad would hardly
work. I thought it was a worn-out surface. Plus, there’s
discoloration at the bottom of the screen.
I need a good screen for photo editing!
This HP Envy laptop will soon be three years
old. The previous laptop lasted four years – a record, for me. Larry says I try very hard to blow computers up.
🤣
I cleaned it, tried changing a few things in ‘mouse
pad settings’, all to no avail.
Then I had another idea. l pulled the settings window back up, and
thinking, What’s there to lose? – if all my favorite settings go away, I can
just put them back, right? – and I clicked ‘Reset all settings’.
Wow, it fixed it lickety-split.
And... oh mah woid, how can this be?!!!
The discolored area on the screen is gone!
What in the world?! It’s been there for months.
How did clicking ‘Reset’ on the touchpad
settings fix the screen, for pity’s sake?
Well, I’m not complaining. 😃 Just wondering.
And now, the last load of clothes is in the
dryer. Why am I hungry? I should not be hungry. Eating at this time of night is liable to
make me gain a pound or two. Maybe raw
slices of summer squash would trick me into thinking they’re a good snack.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah ‘Reset’ Lynn, the brilliant computer
fixer ,,,>^..^<,,,
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