NEW PROJECT

I am starting a new project with a 10 step grey/black gradation. Since this is all mapped out on paper, I need to keep track of what color goes where. I cut the strips and numbered them clipping them together with binder clips. I wasn't sure how to work with them since the colors are so similar. I needed a way to keep them organized. I had Bill cut a board for me. Drill a hole in each end for hanging, and then put 10 screws, equally spaced to hang the strips. I think this is going to work for me. It is hanging to the left of my sewing machine.


Here is a picture of the lilacs in the front of my house. The scent is almost overpowering


Okay, here is a question for everyone. I have these flowers growing on the shady side of my house. they have big leaves, and tiny little blue flowers. anyone know what they might be?

HOME SAFE AND SOUND

My hairy kid is home. Poor little guy had 4 big stones (for a little bladder) the two I saw were a little bigger than peas. And the two they sent away were almost the size of marbles. Along with a bunch of gravel. He has a 3" incision on his abdomen ($225.00 an inch) The vet sent him home on antibiotics and pain meds. The vet says that he acts like he is still in pain, that Sam is 'sensitive' anyway. I'm glad that this vet realizes that animals can feel pain, especially after abdominal surgery. He sent the stones out to see what might be causing the problem.

Rian, Sam has been on Science Diet SD and/or CD for 2 years, the first time we saw 'gravel' in his bladder and he was peeing blood. The stones only got worse. And if he hadn't had pain from a degenerative disc in his back, ($$Cha-ching!) I wouldn't have known that the stones had become so big. The vet said that some dogs just develop them. I'm up for any kind of ideas on how to prevent them. Any of my other dogs, I would have told them that I could buy a new model of dog for the amount that I have put out to keep them well. But, I have had dogs my whole life, and Sam is the most special one to me. Maybe it is because he is my first little dog, and I can pick him up and hold him.

Well, I have to take the little patient upstairs and feed him, then we will lay on the couch and watch American Idol. Bill is in Columbus for a seminar, so Sam and I have the couch to ourselves this evening.

WHY I'M GLAD MY DOG CAN'T TALK

My darling Sam had surgery this morning to take those nasty stones out of his bladder. We have a routine in the mornings. We get up at 5:15 am. Sam, Lily and I go outside. Then depending how cold it is we all run back in the house. Then they get a drink, and their breakfast. Well first thing Sam does is go for the bowl of water which I promptly pick up. He looks at me like "Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND??? Then Lily runs into her crate, and back out and in her crate (she's expecting breakfast). Well, if I fed her, sometime between then and when Bill took Sam to the vet at 7:30, he would eat. I can't trust something that important to my husband. He would never notice, and then he would say "I didn't know", like that would fix it all. So,neither dog got fed much to their chagrin. I carried Sam into the bedroom because he sleeps with Bill until he gets up. Sam would have none of that. I put him on the bed, and he beat me to the door. 'WHERE'S MY FOOD'. He stares at me with those big brown eyes. I give him a kiss, toss him back on the bed and close the door.

The vet called to say that Sam is doing well. The only thing I don't like about this vet is that he doesn't have anyone there to check on the dogs at night. I hate the thought of my baby being there by himself all night. I hope that he sleeps... I told them he needs to have me as a private duty nurse. Bill was wondering why I didn't offer to be HIS private duty nurse while he was laid up.. Is he KIDDING?

SAM'S NEW HAIRCUT

HOW I SPENT MY WEEKEND

I admit it. I pretty much loafed all weekend. On Friday, I met with my Twisted Stitcher group. We had fun as usual. I took my batik/hand dye scrap basket and ironed and chose fabrics to use in my new mini. I sewed one 2" New York Beauty Block. I decided that it is too hard of a block to do in miniature on my workshop sewing machine, which doesn't have the needle down and foot raising/lowering feature that my home Pfaff has. I also could have used a stiletto. Live and learn. That can be a difficult block full size, I need to think about it to accomplish it in a miniature version.

Yesterday, I cleaned out my quilt trunk. Bill made a chest for me out of spanish cedar. In it, I store all of my special quilts and clothes that I made for my kids. I took everything out, re- folded and rewrapped and replaced in the trunk. I took a picture of an old family crazy quilt that is pretty bad off. It is made of wools and homespuns. It is embroidered in what looks like yarn. It is not beautiful like some crazy quilts I have seen, but then again, my ancestors were not a wealthy bunch, so they did what they could with what they had.

Today, I took Sam to be groomed. He is having surgery tomorrow to have the bladderstones removed. Poor baby. Bill and I dropped him off, and went to se the DaVinci Code. I thought it was an okay movie. I didn't walk out of there wishing I hadn't wasted my time. Hey, the critics hated it.. so it had to be okay for us mortals. After all, I wasted 4 hours of my life seeing "In the Bedroom" and "Lost in Translation" because of the critical acclaim. They didn't fool me last year, I think for the first time I saw NONE of the Academy Award best movie nominees.
As for the DaVinci code, I liked the book, and I don't see what the uproar is about. Either you have faith in the divinity of Jesus Christ, or you don't. If you are strong in your faith, a movie shouldn't be able to shake it.

They did a remake of "The Omen" . The scariest movie of all time. The first one came out when I was in my early twenties. My best friend Nancy and I went to see it, and we were scared for days. I can't wait. She won't go see it with me.. the sissy.

THURSDAY AGAIN

Sorry, I really didn't drop off of the earth . It has just been cold and rainy here, and prompts me to have long naps in the afternoon after work. I just haven't had anything new to write about. Above is a picture of what is above my computer. I just put up a gallery frame with the letter from the MAQS requesting my quilt for the museum. I put the screwdriver tip into my finger trying to hang that one. I have put up my quilt, my self portrait, and my ribbons.. okay, it is tacky hanging ribbons I guess. But it is my studio, and I am proud of them. I hope to have many more to add to the collection.

I have a couple of projects in the works, nothing finished enough to photograph. I love my new camera. I bought a telescoping easel. The kind you put flip charts or dry erase boards on. I am going to have Bill cut a 24X24" board that I can mount cork on. That way I can photograph my miniature quilts in an upright position using a tripod. It will be much better that way.

Work has been stressful. Mostly because of trying to figure out difficult people. I just want to do my job to the best of my ability, have a pleasant day, and go home. Sometimes it just doesn't work out that way for me. Oh well, I only work part time (Thank God) and I am off now until Monday.

LEARNING FROM MISTAKES

Someone online told me that she used Oxyclean to take dye runs out of a red and white quilt that she had hand quilted, only to have the red run. So I soaked my mini in a bucket with half a scoop of Oxyclean.. or the supermarket brand.. because I couldn't find the original. Anyway, It looked pretty bad when I pulled it out of the bucket several hours later. There was a lot of blue dye in the bucket. I figured 'what the heck' I threw it in the washer with my regular laundry soap that comes in a big bucket from Sams and Clorox 2. When all of that was done, I blocked the quilt and let it dry.

You know, this morning, all of that blue dye haze that was all over the cream areas is gone, and the quilt is cream again! I would have taken a little more care quilting it if I had known I would save it. Lesson one learned.

Lesson 2..I used this stuff for the piping. It was drapery cord or something recommended by Susan Cleveland who makes this nifty little tool to make piping. Anyway, I did pre shrink it like she said. But it is not cotton, so it didn't shrink at the same rate as the wool batt I used did. So you will see in the picture above, the piping is wavy. Next time I will try the #3 Pearl Cotton for piping like Ricky Tims uses for his piped binding. I got to see it close up in a class I took with him. At least I know I can pre-shrink cotton.

Lesson 3... Although, it isn't as noticeable as it is in my pineapple, I should have done a continuous piping around the edge instead of doing 4 strips. I got knocked for doing it by the Judges in Paducah. From now on I will do it continuous.

Lesson 4.... I have never done this, but I noticed when I got closeups of Ricky's quilts (Dad's Lone Star, and Bohemian Rhapsody...yes, I got to touch them, and look at them closeup. All I can say is Wow) and Sally Collins small scale quilts, they were thin, flat, and weren't puckered like most quilts. This intriged me. I found out that both pre-wash their Hobbs 80/20 Batt. I have never pre-washed batt. A lot of it also depends on the density of the quilting. I can tell the difference in the thickness between my 2 minis. The flying geese mini is thin.. quilting is dense. The pineapple is not thin and you can see the quilting design more prominately. That is because the quilting is farther apart to create the star design.

So, you see, even in a quilt that might be full of mistakes. Mistakes that draw your eye every time you look at it. You can learn so much, so that the next time you spend hours making a quilt, you will know what new things to try to make it even better.

NEW CAMERA

I bought myself a new camera. An Olympus Stylus 810. It is an 8.0 mega pixel camera. My last camera, an Olympus Camedia which was a 5.o and plenty good enough. I took great pictures with it. But it had this sliding cover that when pulled back, turned the camera on. It was starting to stick while I was in Paducah, but I think that the final straw was when it took a nose dive to the pavement while I had it on a flimsy tripod. The camera still worked, but it was iffy whether the power would come on or not when I slid the cover back. So.. soothing myself at the loss of the long arm due to a too small room, I decided to buy myself a new camera.

One thing that surprised me was that it has internal memory. I bought another Olympus because it took an Xd memory card which is what my other camera took. I had just bought a 1gig card that didn't work on my old camera but does work on this new one. When I took everything out of the box, there was no 32 mb starter card like I got with my other camera. I was surprised, and figured it was a way to force me to get a memory card in order to use my camera. But I was wrong. The camera has internal memory that holds up to 40 pics depending on what size I set the camera.

I really like it. It has a big screen on the back, a digital image stabilization mode, and a 'Bright Capture' technology to take nice clear and sharp pictures in a low light situation.

I attached the strap I had with my old Nikon camera. It is a thin strap, but is long enough to put over my neck. That way, I don't have to worry about dropping my camera.

Today, UPS delivered boxes to me. Bill thought it was funny. I ordered boxes to mail my quilt. they are 14x14x2". I can't find them anywhere around here, and I only paid .69 cents each as opposed to several dollars. Perfect. Just the right size.

NO LONGARM FOR ME

Well, shoot. I finally went in and measured the room I was planning on putting the longarm machine. And IT'S NOT BIG ENOUGH. Our Basement is pretty much finished with rooms. The room that I was going to use is about 14 feet, which I could work around if it wasn't for that stupid pipe running from the ceiling to the floor that takes up about 14" all together from the wall, which means that I would have to move the machine out towards the center of the room, which means I would have to squeeze past one of the ends to even get IN the room. I can't work like that. I need to have more room to load the quilt and all that. Oh well, not meant to be I guess.

I hope my friend can find someone else that can fit it in their house. I guess I could kick kids out.. I wonder how big my daughter's room is... where is my measuring tape?...

STUFF

A bird house found in Amishland made out of Gourds. I think it is a Martin House
I took this picture for my friend Lindy, who obviously doesn't get what to do with the squirrels that she traps in her yard an carts off to another place. She could have this nifty squirrel hut in the back yard with a big wheel for them to run in, and a couple of big fat squirrels
I've been telling Bill that we should get one of these. You load wood into it to heat your house.
Something I don't find in the Cherrywoods I work with..

CHERRYWOOD

And you thought I only knew about one kind of cherrywood. Here is the other that I know about.. pre-entertainment center.. and whatever else I think of...

BLOCKING HER VIEW

We went to an auction at a local nursery and we bought some bushes to plant so we don't have to look at the old bat next door. Remember the one who cut so many of our trees last year?
We bought a Star Magnolia which went in the front yard. We bought several burning bushes, privets, and some Japanese bushes which get tall and wide quickly. They will look beautiful this fall.

MONSTER'S HAIRCUT

The other day I told you about shedding machine Lily's haircut. Here are before and after photos

A QUILT AND A LAP

All Sam needs is a quilt and a lap, and he knows how to use them!

LOVE THEM BLUE RIBBONS!

Skeletons From My Closet won "Best Interpretation of Theme" in the Innovative category at the Denver National Quilt Festival. My net friend Teresa called to tell me, and then I looked at the Denver show site for the specifics. I never thought of looking at show sites, just figured that if I didn't have anyone to call me, I wouldn't know until the quilt came home.

I was worried that my quilt wasn't home from AQS. I called, and they hadn't shipped it yet. The person told me that he didn't have any shipping information. I should have just picked it up. I gave all of the information to Bonnie Brownings assistant and she must not have taken the infomation to where it needed to be. I hope that she didn't lose the piece of paper where she wrote all of my credit card information!

They must have shipped it yesterday. I got this email with a tracking number.. that didn't work at the UPS site. I hope it isn't gone for good.

I think I will call them again and clear things up.

Got a call from my husband. The HMO we had was bought out, and we have to change carriers again. My husband gets to keep his cardiologist, but we will have to change doctors AGAIN. And I won't get to see the orthopedic guy that I wanted to follow up with for my knee replacement. I keep telling myself to be glad we have coverage at all...

TGIT

That's right. Thank God it's Thursday. That means that now that I am home from work, it is the start of my 3 day weekend. I love coming home. So much to do. I cleaned out the closet in the living room. And I am in the process of cleaning out the bedroom closet. I am taking the chance that it will stay relatively nice, so I took my winter duds and put them in another closet.

Meg and I went to see United 93 yesterday. If I had know it would be one of those movies with the cameraman filming while bouncing on a pogo stick, I would have seen something different. It was an interesting movie. Kind of weird saying it was good, but it was true to what happened. I had to close my eyes for nearly the hole movie.. once the headache and nausea from motion sickness took hold. I came home and took a nap and felt much better afterwards.

Other than that, nothing much going on. Skeletons are in the Denver show. I am waiting for my mini to return from Paducah. I ended up going home a day early, so I didn't pick up the quilt like I had planned. If it doesn't come today, I will call. She told me they would be shipped on Monday.

That's it. Lily went for her first short haircut. She came home with bows in her ears. She looks cute for a monster. I will post pictures later.