Last Tuesday, I looked out the window to see if any birds were at
the feeders – and there was a sleek black cat on the railing, carefully and
meticulously licking up the last of the suet from the suet feeder. 😄 I saw him out there again this afternoon.
It was overcast
but still a nice day, 67° on its way to 71°.
I took
my Bernina Artista 730 sewing machine to the Nebraska Quilt Company in Fremont,
because it has been skipping stitches ever since the teal-haired woman (the
first time I saw her, she was a John Deere green-haired woman) serviced it.
The man
who with his wife owns Nebraska Quilt Company looked at the machine and discovered
the problem promptly: the needle position had been messed up and not secured,
so it could be moved about freely, without benefit of the button that is supposed
to position it. Somehow, I had not noticed
this particular quallyfobble, but I sure had noticed the skipped stitches! The man, whose name is Loren, assured me
there will be no charge, and they would fix it and call me in a day or two.
Do you
think being preoccupied with the color of one’s hair causes one to make
mistakes with one’s customer’s machines?
😏🤔
It’s
been a looong day or two since I left the machine there. Maybe the problem was even worse than the man
thought? I’m sure glad I have a backup
machine – the 180 Artista. As it did
before, it made funny noises when I started using it, even though I cleaned and
oiled it before I began. It was
apparently complaining over being left to cool its heels for too long, because
it sounds fine now.
Leaving Fremont, I
continued on to Omaha to visit Loren. It was a beautiful drive, with colorful trees and bushes
everywhere.
Loren was in the
TV lounge, and totally engrossed and preoccupied with
Hogan’s Heroes. He looked away
from the screen just long enough to greet me with a happy, “I thought
you’d want to come and watch this with me!” 😆
I handed
him a couple of National Geographic magazines and the Messenger newspaper, pointed
out a cute baby panda in the National Geographic (he glanced at it dutifully), wrote
his name on magazines and newspaper, and tried to watch Hogan’s Heroes with
him. But we were smack dab in front of the TV, and it’s up fairly high on
the wall, and looking up is one thing that blepharospasm makes quite
difficult.
So I
pulled out my phone and looked at it, instead – and just then Victoria
sent a picture of Carolyn and Violet coloring.
Carolyn was coloring one of the line drawings of cats I gave them – the
same line drawings I used to make the silhouettes on their quilts.
I gave
them the drawings last Sunday and said, “These have something to do with your
Christmas presents, but I’m not going to tell you what!”
They
were of course giggling, all pleased and intrigued.
I showed
the picture to Loren; he’s always glad to see pictures of our grandchildren.
My eyes were
pretty good that day, considering I have not been able to get the Botox
treatment. A cloudy sky always helps.
I got home about 7:00 p.m., fixed supper, and posted the pictures I’d
taken that day.
A
quilting friend commented, “I’ve noticed most of the foliage there is a golden yellow. Very little red. Is there a reason for this? I’m on the east coast, and we have a mixture.”
“Yes,” I responded, “it’s because
there is a lot less variety in the trees that grow here – especially in the
middle and western part of the state – than along the eastern coast.”
Did you know that a large reason for
the variety of trees along the Eastern Seaboard is because of seed-eating birds
whose flyway is along the coast? They
eat seeds in one area... fly to another area... and deposit seeds. 🐦🦅
Another lady was unduly sorrowful over this photo, giving
it a ‘crying’ emoji and writing, “One poor tree.”
“It looks pretty bedraggled, doesn’t it?” I agreed.
“Aren’t they taking care of this tree?” she pressed.
“It’s in a row of trees, brush, and tall prairie grasses
(some of which can be seen to the right of the tree) at the edge of the field,
next to a two-rut lane,” I told her. “Farmers
leave such patches of growth, called ‘Prairie Strips’ or ‘Rewilding Strips’,
for birds, pollinators, and other grassland wildlife. There are several nests in that tree.”
Hopefully, she has now dried her tears.
Thursday
morning, I watered the houseplants, started washing Larry’s work clothes, paid
some bills, cleaned a bathroom, and made a fresh pot of Pilgrim’s Pecan Torte
coffee from Amana Coffees. It has milk
chocolate and honey-roasted pecan flavorings. Mmmmm. I’d
better order a couple more bags of those coffee beans while I can! – it’s a seasonal
flavor.
It was
58°, and overcast. The weatherman was
warning that the next day’s temperatures would only get to the mid 30s, and
over the weekend we would very likely receive snow. One of the radio announcers on the rural radio
station hates snow, and he puts on this ‘I-can-hardly-say-the-word’ persona,
pronouncing it as “sssss....noe!” until I want to smack a wide piece of gorilla
tape over his mouth.
I cleaned
the kitchen, then headed upstairs to my sewing room.
Here’s a
fact: stink bugs do not like being
doused with Pink Lilac & Vanilla room spray. I knew you’d want to know.
I spent most of the day sewing
together a whole lot of leftover polyester batting pieces to make a big enough
piece for the Cross-Stitched Teddies quilt. While I was at it making Frankenbatting, I
thought I might as well put together enough strips and pieces for the next
quilt, too, this time using cotton. I
cut and squared up a bunch of pieces to sew together, then loaded the
Cross-Stitched Teddies quilt on my quilting frame.
Having gotten the quilt loaded, I paused to look
through the box of fabrics and sewing and quilting kits Teddy and Amy and their
family gave me for my birthday three weeks ago.
To my surprise, I found a cute quilted Donna Sharp bag wrapped in tissue
in the middle of the box! I’ll betcha
they’ve wondered how long it would take me to find it!
Furthermore, inside the purse was a cute Primitive
Gatherings scissor-keepers kit. I like
Primitive Gatherings kits, with their pretty woolen pieces.
Friday morning, a little female downy woodpecker landed on the suet
feeder, discovered it was empty, turned her cute little striped head, looked
straight at the window where I was standing, and ‘chirp-chirp-chirpity-chirped’
at me. So I obligingly got on a pair of
sandals and trotted out to fill all the feeders.
Brrrrr! It was sunny, but
only 32° – too, too cold for sandals.
The nyjer seed feeder was still full from when I filled it over a
week ago, and I’ve seen few house finches, and nearly no goldfinches at all. This happens at this time of year, because
those little seed- and insect-eating birds find treasure troves of seeds and
insects everywhere they look. That will
change, soon.
That afternoon, I washed my rag rug. This entailed getting Larry to haul it
downstairs for me (that thing is big and bulky and heavy) and out onto
the back deck when he came home for lunch.
I then squirted Mrs. Meyer’s geranium-scented
liquid dish soap on it. I always get carried away with that
stuff.
Was it Stan Laurel who was in a laundromat, way back when,
pondering over how much detergent to use? – “Reckon a whole box will do?”
He poured it in, started the washing machine.
Suds billowed. They billowed from the machine.
They billowed onto the floor. They billowed out the windows and out the
door.
Directly, Stan Laurel (if it was him) was heard shouting, “Get
the women and children out first!”
Anyway, I squirted liquid geraniums all over the rug, and
then proceeded to pour gallon pitcher upon gallon pitcher of hot water on it.
And we had suds.
Did we ever have suds.
After a while, despairing of ever getting rid of all that
geranium soap, I attempted to lift one side of the rug in order to let the
water (and suds) drain off of it. I used some kind of thick, heavy-duty
polyester on the back of this rug, and liberally coated it with Fiber-Lok
Non-Skid Backing, back when I made it several years ago. This of course
prevents water from simply running through it.
(I always coat things liberally: pancakes with syrup, rugs with Fiber-Lok,
skin with lotion, walls with paint, toasted bagels with butter, pie with
whipped cream, ...)
Problem: that big, bulky, heavy rug now weighed a good
ten or twenty times more than it had previously weighed. (I nevah, evah
exaggerate.)
With a lot of struggle and effort, lifting one corner after
another a little at a time, I finally got enough water poured off of it that I
could drag it up and over the iron bench and railing, so it could dry.
Theoretically.
It was only 37° out there that day. It would get down
to 26° that night, and we were expecting snow Saturday night and Sunday.
I wonder how many times the rug will freeze before it actually dries??
Yeah, yeah, I know I should’ve done this
sooner, when it was still hot outside. Blame it on Larry. He kept
forgetting to haul the rug downstairs for me. It’s not my fault, I can’t
help it, I’m not to blame, I refuse to take responsibility for it! 😆
It is now time to reorder dish soap, for some reason.
A lady on Facebook advised me that she sometimes washes her
big, heavy rugs in the washing machine and dries them in the dryer. She also recommended her second method: hang it on the clothesline and use fish soap
(later edited to dish soap – I did scratch my head over ‘fish soap’ 😆) and a scrub brush.
She underestimates the size of the thing. Why, I could cut this rug into quadrants, and
the individual quadrants would not fit in my washer or dryer, never mind
the fact that they are large, commercial-sized machines! And if I tried hanging it on a clothesline,
even before getting it wet, it would not only bring down the line, but
the posts, too, right along with it.
By nighttime, the rug was partially dry and partially
frozen, all crackly and stiff. Larry
hauled it down to the basement for me, draped it over my Gorilla cart – and
there it is still, with an oscillating heater/fan blowing on it. Hopefully it’ll be dry by the next time I am
ready to quilt again. It really is much
nicer quilting with that thick rag rug underfoot than quilting on a bare oak
floor, especially in the wintertime.
That afternoon, I sewed the
cotton batting together for the next quilt, which will be Elsie’s. I then began quilting Malinda’s
Cross-Stitched Teddies quilt, getting the top border done before quitting for
the night.
Saturday, Larry came home
from work earlier than usual and fixed French toast. I finished showering and fixing my hair in
time to have one fresh off the griddle.
We’ve been getting Nature’s Own thick-sliced multi-grain bread. It’s scrumptious – and even more so, when
made into French toast. Mmmmm, mmmm.
The chrysanthemums Kurt
and Victoria and family gave me for my birthday are blooming like anything. One day this coming week when the weather is
nice, I’ll plant them outside.
I spent several hours quilting
Malinda’s Cross-Stitched Teddies quilt. I’m
trying to do simple quilting, a little bit vintage. Is it simple?
Is it vintage?
At 7:00 p.m., I took a
break to fix supper. Larry was still
working on vehicles in Genoa, but I was starving; so while the ground venison
meatloaf was in the oven, I had an appetizer of lettuce salad. That wasn’t enough, so I ate dessert, too: watermelon. When the meatloaf was done, I had a small
piece.
A meal doesn’t seem
right, ending with meatloaf, so I had a few bites of cottage cheese and half a
glass of orange juice. And then I was
full, and felt just right.
Back up the stairs I went
to my quilting studio to quilt for a few more hours. I will soon be ready to start on row 3.
A quilting friend
remarked that she liked the skinny ‘frame’ around the Cross-Stitched Teddies.
“Thank
you!” said I. “That happened because I
cut the first ‘frames’ too small. 😏🙄 I debated what to do (my debates with
myself generally last about two minutes or less, heh), and decided on this. Play it up, and pretend you are clever, that’s
my motto! 😆
Sure
enough, we woke up this morning to snow all over the ground. It was 26° at 7:45 a.m., eventually getting up
to a high of 35°. I sipped a steaming cup
of Vanilla Hazelnut Pecan coffee as I blow-dried and curled my hair in
preparation for church.
It’s Kurt and Victoria’s
7th anniversary tomorrow. We
gave them their gift tonight after church.
The traditional gift for the 7th anniversary is copper, so I
got them a set of four copper cups.
Bedtime! I wonder how many rows of quilting I can get
done tomorrow?
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
