Traveling Tuesday

Recently, I got to play with my work friend!

Another Handi Quilter Educator, Harriet, was visiting her family in New York this week. I found out and stole her away and dragged her to the toy store with me.

I forced her to sew:



and hang out with a bunch of quilters.

We were making a mystery quilt. We each completed the first block and had to show them off:



That handsome fellow in the middle is Bob, shop co-owner and our teacher for the day. Jim was taking our picture, but I wish he could have been in the photo, as well.

If you look closely at the blocks Harriet and I are holding, they are not the same. That would mean that mine is wrong. I hurriedly put one block together without reading all the directions. Note to self: don't do that again. I did fix it as soon as I got home.

I had a wonderful time with my friend Harriet and with all the quilters in Woodstock, NY. Hopefully Harriet will have to visit her family at least once a month and we'll get to take many more visits to the toy store!

A Monday Miracle

After car shopping and crunching numbers, we got to experience a car-miracle.

We've been having electrical problems in the car for a while now. We replaced the alternator in January and that didn't fix the problem. We replaced the battery in March and that didn't fix the problem. We were certain that whatever it was would be expensive and could cause us to sell the car and buy a new one.

It was the alternator. Apparently, the one they put in back in January was faulty. My new favorite word is warrantee.

Since my car isn't getting any younger, we are still car shopping. With a working car, though, it's more like research. We can handle that.

My LEAST Favorite Things

1. Heat

2. Humidity

3. Bad Hair Days

4. Ants in my house

5. Mosquito bites

6. Not having air conditioning in my house (we have central air, but we need to replace it with one that works)

7. Not having air conditioning in my car (again, I have it but it does not work, along with the rest of my car)

8. Sweating

So basically, I don't like summer. At all. Never have. Still don't. And I don't complain about the cold weather so I plan to complain until autumn arrives. Then I'll be happy again.

Oh, and one more thing I dislike:

9. Car shopping

When to jump ship?

Remember back in March when there were gremlins in my car? Well, they're back. I'm not happy.

I had some earrands to run on this hot and humid day. My car's air conditioner hasn't worked all season. I planned to get that checked out as soon as was convenient (for me, not them). As I was driving on a sticky, sticky afternoon, my battery light came on. I called my husband from the road to put him on alert. I cut my errands short and tried to make it home. My car had other ideas.

My car got stuck in first gear and the tach was showing 5000-6000 (and that's not good). I tried to manually shift to third, but the car was having none of it. I pulled into a grocery store parking lot, shutting my car off and hoping that restarting would help. Hey, it sometimes works with my computer so what do I have to lose? I now know the answer to that question was 'my mind.' I did just that.

My could wouldn't start so I called my husband to jump my car and follow me to the mechanic. I had parked at the empty end of the lot to give a tow truck plenty of room to work, just in case. I don't enjoy hot weather and the parking lot gave off this wonderfully toasty heat. It was very fun waiting there. I watched a police car drive through the lot checking on the cars and the businesses in the plaza. Do you think he came over to check on the distraught woman parked with her hood up? You guessed it, nope. Chivalry is indeed dead.

Mr. Man arrived and went to work on my car. After 20 minutes or so, my car finally started. My husband followed me as I headed for the mechanic's shop. I made it about 4 miles when the car got stuck in first gear again. The traction control kept blinking, and then the brakes got scary. I decided to try and take the car home (closer than the shop) and wait there for a tow truck. During the 5 mile drive home from there my dashboard stopped working. The car shifted gears at random and then the fuel injectors stopped injecting. When that happens, the car 'putt-putts' a few times and then DIES. So my car died. My husband and I pushed it off the road and I called the towing company again.

My American-made baby car with over 100,000 miles on it is in the shop again and we're thinking it may be cheaper to replace the darn thing that it would be to keep repairing it.

I dislike decisions like this. I'm always certain I'll choose wrong. Grrr.

Do you know what would help me with this? Diet Dr. Pepper.

These are some favorite things:

One of my most favorite quilt shops: Quilt Basket

My most favorite lawyer with her favorite quilt evah:



Close-up of her most favorite quilt (at her insistence 'cuz she loves it that much):



The sample from my favorite Strips and Stones Club:



My favorite type of traffic jam (hurriedly taken from the car, so it's blurry and I only caught the last 2):



One of my favorite roadside attractions:

How many can you count? Good gravy, I think there must be 25-30 of them. Get it? Gravy? Turkey? Ahem. I think they just walk across our road all day long because we see them nearly every day.

My favorite nectar of the gods:

Caffeine-Free Diet Dr. Pepper. It's too bad they don't sell it anywhere near where I live. Boo.

Finished by Friday

Look at what leftover Joel Dewberry fabrics can make:

The quilt is 36x40, because that's how much fabric I had. I used Mountain Mist White Rose batting. It's a lot thinner than I expected, but it's super soft. This quilt has an incredible amount of drape. Once it's done serving time as a class sample, some baby will love it. Confession, I did buy .5 yards of new fabric for the binding. I didn't have enough scraps to do even a strippy binding.

I teach longarm quilting and rotate my trunk of samples regularly. This one is going into the trunk as a sample of meandering:

My trunk is full of scrap quilts and quilts from kits I've picked up over time. Making myself change out the quilts every 3-6 months is a great motivation for me. When a feathered quilt has to retire, I look through the sewing room for a quilt that would look good with feathers on it. Then I take the time to piece and quilt it. When quilts retire, they are usually given away. I figure in about 150 years, I'll make a dent in the fabric that is already in the sewing room. How did it all get in here?

So this is the dining room?

My husband bought me patio table for my birthday. My birthday is before Mother's Day. After endless days of too hot, too rainy, too humid..... we finally got to eat outside. It was delightful.




My I'd-much-prefer-to-be-inside-thankyouverymuch cats were locked outside with us. After a half hour of cringing in the corners, they almost relaxed for a minute.



Looking at these photos makes me realize just how far from magazine perfect my house and yard are. I live in the woods, so my house is much closer to 'Outdoor Life' than it is to 'Better Homes and Gardens'. I know that, but sometimes I want the 'House Beautiful' version. Bathrooms that aren't Harvest Gold, Avocado, or Robin's Egg Blue. Windows that don't fall down and smash your hand (that would be my hand and yes, it hurts). A perfectly manicured lawn that someone else takes care of. And much, much more.

Sigh.

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Quilting Progress: I finished piecing the blocks for TQTSNBP #4. I also cut up scrap fabric for an hour. Barely made a dent.

I'm not cool

I was trying to be cool like, "Yeah, so I have a quilt in a magazine. Yawn", but that doesn't work for me. A quilt that I quilted is in a magazine and I'm rather excited.

Check it out. (scroll down to Summer Breeze)

Or, buy The Quilter Magazine September issue and turn to page 32.

Funny-looking birds

I looked out my front door this morning and found a funny-looking bird in my tree:

After six years in this house, we're finally getting rid of the scariest of our trees. Scary as in "will fall on the house and destroy all within," not "spooky" scary like this:



(but this tree is gone now, too). See?:

Being the proud owner of a 21-year-old and a 17-year-old, I've deluded myself into thinking that my industrious children will turn this (and all the other downed trees) into firewood:

We'll see how that goes.

In case you were wondering, these make a lot of noise:

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Quilt Progress: I pieced the blocks for a third TQTSNBP. I also cut through some of my scrap basket fabric. I think someone sneaks in my house at night and adds scrap fabric to the pile. Does this happen to anyone else?

Not a big fan of change

My son is home from college which means our family milk consumption has increased by a factor of 10. I bought milk 3 days ago. It looked just like this:



Today I bought milk again, but it looked like this:



Was the change necessary? Did all milk jugs change, or just the ones at SAMs? Does it remind anyone else of an elementary school-sized bottle of Elmer's Glue?
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Caffeine withdrawal update: Better, but I'd still run most people down for a Diet Dr. Pepper. Maybe tomorrow will be better? My family truly hopes so.
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Quilting progress: I quilted a simple sample to add to my teaching kit. I will post pictures after it's been bound.

A day that begins with the dentist....

.... has to get better, right?

Let me start with

"I hate going to the dentist."

In most areas of my life, I'm a grown up. I do things I don't want to do and try not to complain too much. I can clean bathrooms, do my taxes, and accomplish many other unpleasant things, but going to the dentist is in a completely different category. I can't stand having my teeth touched. By a sharp metal object. And scraped. I have good teeth. I've never had a cavity. I can't imagine having bad teeth and having to endure this torture more often.

Today's torture was even more effective than usual. They used a high-speed water-shooting whirring thingie on my teeth. I had to stop Heidi several times to give me time to shake and whimper and curl up in a corner. I love making a good impression like that. I'm sure she's going to bring a video camera next time so she and all of her friends can have a good laugh at my expense.

I wasn't very awake when I went in first thing this morning hoping to semi-sleep through the trauma. I was in jeans and a t-shirt and a wet-hair ponytail and wasn't wearing any makeup. After the water-torture, I was glad that I hadn't taken any time on my appearance. My face and hair were soaked; I'm so glad I was only going home!

Since I was out of the dentist's office by 9:30 am, the bars weren't open yet. I had to find some other way to put my ordeal behind me. What would a quilter do? I took an hour and cut up my scraps and sewed some completely unnecessary blocks and enjoyed myself immensely.

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Caffeine withdrawal update: My family is threatening to hold me down and caffeinate me against my will. It's like they think I'm grumpy or something. Harumpf! Like a second day of a killer headache wouldn't leave any reasonable human dying for a Diet Dr. Pepper.
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I did make some progress in the dining sewing room today. The other day I finished piecing The-Quilt-That-Shall-Not-Be-Photographed (hereafter known as TQTSNBP). Today I finished piecing the blocks for a second TQTSNBP. Once I can show photos I'll show several of them, I'm sure. I have plans to make at least 5 or 6 of TQTSNBP. Yeah, I'm not at all well.

Caffeine Withdrawal Rocks!

This is about the 10th time I've had to withdraw from caffeine. Each time I swear it will be the last.

May the headache end soon and may I not be stupid enough to get hooked on caffeine yet again.

If anyone needs me, I'll be resting in a dark room.

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My quilting progress today was interrupted by my incredible headache. I did manage to finish binding an old class sample, though.

A day of firsts

Today, for the first time ever, I watched a young man hop across a four-lane road with his pants around his ankles. You read that correctly. He pulled his trousers up once on the other side of the road, but they fell down again shortly after. His boxers were blue, in case you wonder.

Also for the first time ever, I sat in my kitchen for 10 minutes and watched a deer sneeze. Loudly. Repeatedly. She kept shaking her head and scratching her nose. I'm not sure if she's suffering from the same allergies as the humans in this area or if she was having a serious issue with an insect. My daughter sat with me and watched for a while. And you wonder why we don't need television? "Must-see TV .... the involuntary reactions of wildlife". Ok, so that doesn't really work.

About now you must be asking, "Where are the pictures?" Well, the first event was so shockingly sudden that I didn't have time to get the camera out of my purse while driving. The deer sneezing incident wasn't captured due to failing batteries (even though they were new batteries just yesterday).

Enjoying the wonder,
Debby

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Today's quilting progress was to simply piece the backing of the super-bright quilt. I'll post photographs when it's completely done, binding and all.

It's starting to look like a quilt!

My daughter suggested that I might be able to tone this down with a calm border. Is it really that loud?

I'm thinking yellow border and quilting. We'll see how it goes.

More pictures later.

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Today's progress was piecing the top pictured above and adding the yellow borders. I showed my husband the quilt with borders on it and asked if they had the hoped-for calming effect. "Nothing is going to calm that down," was his reply.

for Jenny

The quilt pattern I've made the most of is one of my own. It's terribly simple. I make 160 four-patches from my 2-inch square basket and then set them with 160 off-white squares. There are 20 rows of 16 squares. I add 6-inch borders and the quilt is 60x72 inches, a perfect size for snuggling in a college dorm. I've probably made 15-20 of these quilts, just because the scrap bins keep overflowing.

This one is for Jenny:



I have 3-4 more of these tops just waiting to be quilted.

I know I should retire this pattern at some point, but it's so easy and there are so many little scraps of fabric longing to be part of a quilt someday.

And yes, my son came home from college on Saturday for the sole purpose of holding my quilts for photography.

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I'm trying to finish up a bunch of sewing projects that have taken up my dining room table for far too long. My hope is to make some real progress every day.

Today I finished piecing a quilt top that I cannot show you yet. The second I have permission to do so, I shall. My husband says it looks just like me. I'll let you wonder if that's good or bad.

Quilt Pix

I am a gal who loves to nap. Well, I used to love to nap. Now naps are mostly a fond memory. One of the earlier quilts I made was a red/white/black nap quilt for myself. It's lived on the sofa for several years. It's traveled with me to many hotel rooms. I love that quilt.

Over the winter I saw P&Bs Pop Parade fabric line and thought it would be the perfect Nap Quilt II. I pieced and quilted it and let it hang as a sample in the local quilt shop for a while. It's been part of my teaching trunk show and now it's bound and ready to be used.

Today I was quilting by 6am. I stopped for the day shortly after noon and decided on this very rainy afternoon that it was time for the maiden voyage of the Nap Quilt.

Darkened living room... check. XFiles season 1 on the DVD player... check. Nap QuiltII ... check. Cue eerie theme from the television. Ready, set, ...... phone rings. I answered and was fairly abrupt with the caller. Rewind dvd. Ready, set, nap .... for 10 minutes. Then the phone rang again and I had to get up and have a long job-related conversation.

But for 10 entire minutes, I napped. It was glorious.

Here's the quilt:

The pattern is called Splash. The pattern uses 2.5-inch strips of fabric and looks completely different depending on the fabrics selected.

Please ignore the laundry pole. In addition to naps, I love to hang laundry. It's the simple things in life, really.

Here's a closeup of the quilting. The continuous curve is freehand and therefore not perfect. I

love it anyway. It's PINK!

And here's the back:

The quilt shop didn't have enough yardage of any one fabric for a back, so I picked four brown and pink fabrics and like it even better this way!

May your life be filled with quilts and naps.

Reading is FUN

damental. Does anyone else remember that old commercial? RIF. I remember, and I also remember how to read. Here are some of the books I've finished lately.

Lady of Desire by Gaelen Foley. Read from JFK to Dulles to Salt Lake City. I was friends with the author in junior high and high school. We lost touch when I moved away after graduation. Last year I happened on her name on the NY Times Bestseller list and then purchased all of her books. They rock! OK, so they are Regency-era steamy romance novels, but they are good Regency-era steamy romance novels. I read one each time I fly. If her books were available on audio, I'd be finished with them all by now. As it stands, they are a nice treat when I travel. Like chocolate.

L.A. Outlaws by T. Jefferson Parker. I listened to this one while driving to and from western Pennsylvania. I really enjoyed it, but I'm meh about the ending. The more I think about the ending, the more I like it. I guess the fact that I'm still thinking about the ending shows it was better than meh after all.

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. Teenage werewolf books? Bring them on! My daughter read it and really enjoyed it, but part way through I had to IM my daughter with a "we need to chat" message. Words every 17-year-old loves to hear from her mother, I'm sure. I needed to chat about finishing the book. Some situations in books and movies make me very uncomfortable and I have to stop reading/watching. I was hitting that point in this book, but my daughter assured me it was OK to continue. She was right. Does anyone else have problems like that? No? Just me? Thought so. Oh, and my daughter told me under no circumstances should I watch the movie of the same name. Apparently it's stinky.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. This is probably the best book I've read this year. It was written for young adults but it's obvious that the author respects his audience and wrote for them something that is real and desperate and hopeful and lasting. You should check out this little book. Run to your local library. Now. I'll wait.

Are you back from the library? Good. Now I can explain by my booklist is so short this week. I worked an absolutely insane number of hours last week and even so didn't finish many audiobooks. That is likely explained by the fact that I watched listened to seasons 1-4 of NYPD Blue while I worked. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that show when it was on TV. When oh when will they release season 5?

The Joy of Sewing

Since there are 12 million things I should be doing, I decided to start a new quilt instead. I found my overflowing baskets of five-inch squares and pulled out the bright and happy ones. I'm not sure how I ended up with so much fabric that wasn't bright and happy, but I did and the unhappy squares are safely tucked back in their baskets. The bright fabrics, however, are spread all over the dining room.

I sewed them into random nine-patches:






Then I cut them up:





Tonight I hope to sew them back together in a pleasing arrangement. More pictures as I progress.

I don't have a specific source for this pattern. It's been published under a few names and tutorials are all over the internet.

A quilt in time saves....

.... me having to shop for a baby shower present.

I was just invited to a baby shower for a gal in my Bible study. It's in 7 days.

A year or so ago, I loaned a local retailer some quilts for a display. Unfortunately that retailer just went out of business. Fortunately, they returned my quilts. This was among them:

Baby shower present? Check!

In case you are interested, this pattern is from Confetti in the Corner by Terry Atkinson. I adore this pattern and have made several quilts from it. One of them just returned from Bolivia with my son's girlfriend. She brought her quilt so she would be less homesick.

Awwwwwwwww.

Public Service Announcement

If you have the opportunity to watch Alien Versus Predator: Requiem, opt for the root canal instead.

In the spirit of finding fun in all things, the subtitles were hi-larious. "(approaching whirring noise)" "(brooding music playing)". Here's to you, Mr. Sub-Title Writer. Strive for excellence even in the most B of B-movies. May you never misplace your thesaurus.