Journal: Troublesome Raccoons & A Finished Quilt

 

Late one night last week, one of the local raccoons suddenly realized that I had hidden his feeders in the big heavy-duty plastic pickup toolbox that sits (with my disapproval) on the front porch.  Larry put it there so delivery people can put boxes in it when the weather is bad.  (Not that they do.)

I think it looks tacky.  He thinks it is highly useful, convenient, and practical.  Anyway, there are latches like old-fashioned suitcase latches at each end, which Larry leaves unlatched, because there is a turn-latch in the center that keeps the lid shut just fine, and he somewhat mistakenly believed that if the delivery people didn’t have so many latches to unlatch, then they would leave packages in that box.

Since the delivery people refuse to use the box (except for one lonesome delivery person who put something in there on a perfectly sunny day [and we didn’t find it for an entire week]), I decided to press it into use as a bird feeder storage unit.  If I leave the feeders that hold black-oil sunflower seeds out overnight, the raccoons clean them out entirely, leaving not so much as half a hull behind.

Neither the raccoons nor the squirrels like Nyjer seed, so I leave those feeders out.

At about midnight, I heard the most awful BOOM-BOOM-BOOMING out there on the porch.  Yep, a big raccoon had detected the sunflower seeds in that box, and was trying hard to jerk that lid up.  He could get the corner up a little ways, because of the unlatched, uh, latches – enough that when he’d let go, it would slam shut again, ka-BOOM! 

He must not have pinched his fingers in that thing, because he wasn’t planning on giving up any time soon.

I jerked open the front door and hissed at him (yelling might awaken the neighbors, you know), and he scurry-waddled off, glancing back over his shoulder at me reproachfully. 

Little troublemaker.  He sure was cute, though.

While putting together and quilting the Hanging Gardens quilt, I’ve been sending pictures of my progress to Esther, for whom I was making it. 

Last Tuesday, she wrote back to me, “That’s a huge amount of work.  But you do a beautiful job!!!  I never realized how much trouble one quilt is.  And to think of all the ones you’ve done…”

I wonder how many I’ve made?  I started back when I was about 20 or so, and made a couple without having the faintest idea how to make quilts.  The quilt police were unaware, however; so I escaped unscathed.

When I was doing that enormous photo-scanning undertaking a couple of years ago, scanning all the photos (over 38,500) I had taken from the time I was 9 years old and got a little red (RED!) 126 camera for Christmas (and a red leather jacket!  RED! – it was a wonderful Christmas) until my cameras went digital, I’d turn a page in an album now and again and look with surprise at yet another picture of a quilt I’d made and forgotten all about.  I thought I only made clothes!

Flowers are blooming all over my yard.  Here are hollyhocks, and a purple coneflower just opening.

Several of our suppers last week included the sweet corn I got from Daniels’ Produce stand, always so good.  We ate the watermelon, too, and it was scrumptious.

I’m not tough enough to cut a watermelon gently, and Larry wasn’t home from work yet when I wanted it, so here’s my method:  I get out my biggest, sharpest knife, put the watermelon on a large cutting board, wind up from the shoelaces, and ka-THWACK!!  One swing, and the melon is sliced right in two.  One more THWACK, and I have a perfect slice. 

So there I was then, happily eating watermelon.  

The kids used to call to each other, “Come quick!  Mama’s slicing the watermelon!”

They’d gather, standing well back so as not to get splattered; but it rarely splatters, if the knife is a good, sharp one.

By midnight Tuesday night, I’d made it to the halfway point of the Hanging Gardens quilt.  Between the last two rows, I paused to take a few pictures of the sunset.  It was a brilliant one, thanks to a wildfire just west of the Wyoming/Nebraska state line.

Wednesday was a beautiful day, bright and sunny, with the temperature only getting up to 82°.  

In the morning, the birds were so anxious for their sunflower seeds, they were landing on the feeders before I was done hanging them.

Here’s a little native wildflower that is called ‘mouse ears’.  However, there is a hosta that is also called ‘mouse ears’, so perhaps I should call it by its more formal name, ‘Asiatic dayflower’.

Late that afternoon, I rolled the quilt forward – and the batting lifted from the floor.  That speaks of progress!  I filled a bobbin – and ran out of the Bottom Line thread I was using.  I would have to use Natural White instead of Bright White from then on.  Fortunately, the backing is so busy, this slight change in thread color is not noticeable.

Early that evening after getting ready for church, I transferred all my paraphernalia from the old purse to the new (the Bed|Stu bag and small clutch purse Larry gave me for our 45^th anniversary).  I will now not be able to find a thing.

The bag and clutch are handmade of hand-dyed leather.  Each bag from this company is unique.

I spent the majority of Thursday quilting.  I was now working on the bottom half of the quilt. 

“It’s all downhill from here!” I wrote to Esther.

Ever since hearing about it last year, I’ve been planning to go to the Wolfe Country Quilt Show and Garden Walk at a pretty farmplace west of Omaha.  This year’s date was set for Saturday, July 20^th.

They posted on their Facebook page that day, “Fences are washed, cattle panels set up, and cookies made.  How many cookies do you think have been made?”  They also added, “Please be aware that there is no alternative rain date, and if rain becomes a factor, we will make an announcement as soon as possible.”

And just look at the forecast:

By 9:00 p.m., the quilting was done.

It took a long time to quilt this quilt, even using a pantograph, on account of a) the intensity of the panto, and b) the size of the quilt.  I’m sure glad I didn’t decide to give it custom quilting!

I used up lots of thread and lots of topical analgesics on my neck and shoulders. 😅

I trimmed the quilt from the frame, folded the excess fabric and batting, measured, and then cut the binding.

I sewed the binding together, pressed the seams, and was partway around the quilt with the first binding seam when Larry brought home banana splits from Dairy Queen.

I promptly shut off everything in my quilting studio and came downstairs to enjoy my banana split.

One day last week, my quilt friend Sue, who lives in Texas, and from whom we purchased my Bernina Artista 730 in early 2020, wrote:  “Hi, Sarah Lynn.  I have a whole BUNCH of Bernina/OESD CDs that I’d like to send to you.  Some of these I can’t open without the CD player that came with the 730.  If you still have that player and want these hundreds of designs and feel comfortable about giving me your address......well, you know what to do!”

I sure did.  I thanked her profusely... gave her my address... and told her I would pay the price of the postage.

She used to be a Bernina store employee and a teacher.  “Because the bosses liked for me to make store samples, I was given a lot of OESD store-only CDs.  And I purchased a few Bernina CDs,” she told me.

As soon as I get the grandchildren’s quilts done, I intend to apply myself to learning more about this machine.  I know I’m only playing around on the tip of the iceberg!

I do hope this Bernina, which is probably about 20 years old, lasts a good long while.  It has a few quallyfobbles.  Just that day, I was sewing binding on the Hanging Gardens Quilt, and when I let my foot off the pedal, the machine kept right on sewing, full blast!  I had to turn it completely off to get it to stop.  I’ve had a few similar things happen with both my older 180 and this 730 (such as continuing a slow backstitch after I’d stopped pressing on the foot pedal – but nothing quite like this.  Anyway, it hasn’t done it again.

Friday afternoon, I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, walked over to the window to watch the rain that had begun falling – and there on the porch was the box from Sue!  I scurred quickly out to get it before the rain soaked through the box.  She sent not only CDs in a big, nice binder full of pockets, but also pamphlets and printouts of all the embroideries, with lists of thread colors.

I would never have been able to buy all these, even if they were still available.

That evening, Victoria sent pictures of Arnold; he’s 6 months old.

“We took those photos at 7:30 a.m.!” she said.

“He looks pretty cheery about the earliness of the day!” I remarked.

“That’s his best time,” laughed Victoria.

I finished sewing the binding on the Hanging Gardens quilt that evening, and then spent some time looking through all the papers, pamphlets, booklets, and instructions Sue had sent me.  I picked out an embroidery design for the label for the quilt, and saved it onto the thumb drive from the CD.

In looking through the binder of CDs, I found a note from Sue on one, saying that she could not get it to open on her laptop.  “If you can get it to open with your Bernina reader,” she wrote, “could you please send me the files?”

I put it into the reader to see if it would open – but all that happened was that the card reader made alarmed and alarming noises, and I hastily rescued it before the disc ate its laser beam and the photodiodes, right along with it.  😲

Here’s what the binding stitching looks like on the back.  I do it all by machine.

Wow, the raccoons weren’t too so very cute that night.  Three big ones were really raising the roof, having a rip-roaring, growling, snarling, biting fight on the back deck.

Saturday morning, Victoria sent an excerpt from an obituary she’d read, writing, “I’m so confused…”

Here’s what it said (name is changed):  “Hugo lived for excitement.  Whether cruising in his Corvette, riding his Harley, or exploring in his Can-Am or Defender.  He loved all animals, including his cat that had no name in which he fried eggs for in the morning.”

“What’s the confusion?” I asked.  “I mean, who doesn’t have an unnamed cat in which one fries eggs each morning??” 

But maybe it was that second sentence fragment that caused the confusion?

The Wolfe Country was indeed canceled, as there was just too great a chance of rain.

That afternoon, I went to visit Loren.  

I found him in the TV lounge watching some horror movie with giant rabid dogs whose heads and teeth and eyes glowed in the dark.

“What is that?!” he exclaimed as the camera zoomed in on the dog’s glowing blue head with its glimmering red eyes.

“It’s nothing,” I informed him.  “It’s all just made up, in order to give everybody nightmares.” 

He laughed at that.  He watched the scary dog trying to catch a few unfortunate individuals, then remarked, “They have a lot of imagination!”  He looked at me.  “The people who…”  He trailed off, losing his line of thought upon spotting the National Geographic magazines on which I was writing his name.

“They should use their imagination for more profitable endeavors,” I said, and Loren nodded in agreement – then promptly got engrossed in the grossness all over again.

He was soon pointing at the TV screen, saying, “I don’t know what those helicopters are for.”

It was a giant robot in the form of a human.

“That’s quite the robot,” I said.

“Oh, yes, robot,” he agreed.

The staff at nursing homes often use TVs for babysitters.  I wonder if any of them ever realize that they don’t do themselves any favors in the long run, what with the hallucinations and nightmares much of that content generates among the general populace?!

There was a light rain most of the way from Omaha back to Columbus.  A couple of cold-air funnels were seen over Norfolk, but they did not touch the ground or cause any damage. 

I got home a little before 6:30 p.m.  Shortly after 7, it stopped raining and the sun came out, so I hurried out to the back deck with the quilt and took some pictures of it.  They weren’t very good; sort of grayish, as the sun was too far down for good lighting.

What I need is a free-standing quilt hanger that I can erect wherever I wish.  It would have to be adjustable, able to be made big enough and sturdy enough to accommodate quilts like the Hanging Gardens quilt, which is 114” x 114”.

I wonder if I know anybody who’s handy with pipes and welders and suchlike?

Yeah, I do know somebody like that.  However, the person I know who would be perfectly capable of building such a thing already has 4,623,032 irons in the fire.  And yes, that person is Larry.

I wonder if I can buy such a thing?  (A big quilt hanger, that is, not another Larry.)  I looked online... and discovered several large, heavy-duty hangers, but none big enough for a king-size quilt.

“You just need a drone,” Victoria told me when I mentioned this dilemma to her.  “Lay the quilt flat on the ground and then use a drone to take pictures.  😆”

“I’d probably be looking at the quilt to make sure it was lying all nice and flat,” I said, “and fly the drone smack into my own head.”

I sent Larry a text, telling him I was home, and asking if he’d like to get nachos or something. 

He would.  “I’ll be there in half an hour,” he told me.

He was not.  (If that man is ever on time for anything, it causes me to have heart palpitations.)

“Never mind the nachos,” I texted again.  “I’m going to eat chicken noodle soup.”

Whataya know, he later brought me a Royal New York Cheesecake Blizzard as a compensation.  (Good thing I only had chicken noodle soup.)

In my quilting studio, I designed the label for Esther’s quilt, including a floral design from my new embroidery CDs.  Soon the machine was embroidering away.

By the time the label was complete, it was after midnight.  I emailed Esther a few pictures, telling her, “I need to fly fast into the feathers if I want to avoid napping in Sunday School tomorrow!”  Then, glancing at the clock, I added, “It’s only ‘tomorrow’ after I go to bed and get back up; never mind what the clock says.”

Here’s a recap of the Hanging Gardens quilt:

I made this memory quilt for Esther Wright, the daughter of Bethany, a dear friend of mine who passed away in August of 2023 after being ill for many years.  Esther helped care for her mother during that time.  Bethany was also the mother of my son-in-law Bobby.  

I offered to make Esther a quilt with her mother’s fabric and/or the dresses Bethany had sewn for Esther when she was young.  Accordingly, a few weeks ago Esther invited me over and let me choose enough fabrics and dresses to fill a large bin.  I cut apart the dresses, glad Bethany liked to make full, ruffly dresses with puffy sleeves, as that gave me more fabric to work with.  The backing, too, came from Bethany’s stash of fabric.  I purchased the white background fabric, and the dark plum pieces came from my own stash.

The quilt measures 114” x 114”.  I used Quilters’ Dream wool batting.  There is 40-weight Omni white thread on top, and 60-weight Bottom Line white thread in the bobbin.  The pantograph is called ‘Marigold’, designed by Patricia E. Ritter and Leisha Farnsworth.  I have an 18” Handi Quilter Avanté (hand-guided, not computer-driven) on a 12’ Studio frame.  The binding is sewn on entirely by machine (Bernina).  The label was embroidered on my Bernina Artista 730.

I posted photos on various quilting groups with the above paragraphs of explanation – and promptly got the following questions:

What is the quilting design?

Is this computerized?

What kind of an embroidery machine do you have?

Etc.

These are the people who flunked even open-book tests in school.  😅

Ah, well.  It’s probably because I write too much.  It was likely me who caused someone to make up the acronym, TLDR (Too Long, Didn’t Read).  😄

Sunday morning, Esther answered my email of the previous night, offering, “I could bring my extendable poker and use it if you want me to help you stay awake in church.”

“Okay, now,” I responded, “that ‘extendable poker’ thing absolutely sounded exactly like something your mother would’ve written in a note to me, way back when.  😄”

When I turned 16 and got my driver’s license, Bethany gave me a birthday card with a Band-Aid in it for when I crashed, writing that she trusted I would have enough sense not to have a bad enough crash that I would need more than one Band-Aid.

I used to write notes to her, asking questions that required lengthy answers just to see what hilarious answers she would return.  Somewhere, I have a few of those notes saved.

When we got up that morning, there was such a dense fog, we couldn’t even see the trees on the other side of our lawn, let alone the neighbors’ house across the lane.

But the sun was shining by the time our morning church service was over, so I was able to get more pictures of the quilt on our back deck.  The colors are much truer to life, in sunlight.

After our evening service, we took the quilt to Esther.  Our son-in-law and daughter, Bobby and Hannah, and a couple of their children, Joanna and Levi, were there, along with Esther’s father and another of her nieces.  Several people helped her spread out the quilt, and they took turns reading the label.

Esther pointed out one of the fabrics and said, “This was my favorite dress of all time, I think.”

I thought it was, as I remembered her wearing it often.  Some parts of it were well-worn.  I attempted to use those parts of the dress that were in the best shape.  “If any fabric tears or doesn’t hold up, just let me know,” I said, “and I will patch it; I have fabric left over.”

Aaarrrrgggghhhh, I just discovered that the birdbath the raccoons knocked over a couple of days ago landed right on the chrysanthemum Victoria gave me for my birthday last year!  I planted it (the chrysanthemum; not the bird feeder) shortly thereafter, and it came up hale and hearty this spring, and looked so nice.  Now it’s creased right down the middle, with broken and dead stems in the middle.  AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH.

The last load of laundry is folded and put away.  Tomorrow I have some paperwork and bills to tend to, and some photos to scan.  I think that big bin of albums we found on July 4^th will have to wait to be scanned until the grandchildren’s quilts are done. 

Juliana’s quilt is next!  I’ve already designed it in EQ8, using some blocks printed with kittens that Amy found at a secondhand store.  

I doubt if I have the blues and pinks in my small stash to make it like this.  We’ll see!

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