Decades and blue moons

I am amazed at how many people have both wrong. It's not the end of the first decade of the 21st century. You can't count to ten and end on nine. That's only nine. And you can't start counting anything with zero or ten.

It's not a blue moon either. A blue moon is a little more complicated than the second blue moon in a calendar month. Especially since blue moons were called blue moons by people that didn't use a Gregorian or Julian calendar. Blue moons were known to people that counted time by moons. A blue moon is the third of four full moons during the time between a solstice and an equinox. Blue moons only occur during February, May, August and November.

I started the September "Year in a Snap" wall hanging today. I'm going to get the last four tops of that series done in the next week and then I'll get them all quilted at the same time. Then it's on to the monster wall hangings.

Trunk show

I've been asked by one of the local guilds to do a trunk show at the end of February. Uhhh oh. I better get myself in gear and get some new stuff done!! They'll get wall hangings since I tend to keep a lot more of them. The quilts that get finished generally go live somewhere else as soon as they're done.


I'm not working a formal tax season this year. I'll still do a few tax returns but I won't have the pressure to put out 8 to 10 returns a day. If I do 20 for the whole tax season that'll be plenty. I'll only be doing paper returns, no e-filing, no stupid loans. Basically if they don't like it they can go somewhere else and I don't care.


Not spending 40 to 60 hours a week doing taxes this next year should really help me get caught up on quilt things.

FLY!

I saw this pattern in the October issue of Quilt World and I knew I *had* to make it for Deb. I didn't tell her that though. So I got it done in plenty of time to show and tell it at all three guild meetings at the end of October -beginning of November. Of course I showed Deb a pic and she just LOVED it.

You should have heard her yell when it showed up in her mail.

it's official...

I hate Thangles. I have yet to get an accurate hst with these stupid things. Fortunately I took a class from Sally Schneider and have a gizmo. I can still use the 2.5 inch strips to make 2 inch hst with the gizmo. There's more than one way to make hst!!

a scene challenge

So, the challenge for the Timeless Treasures guild that meets four times a year was to do a scene. To most people that means a landscape. I know there are lots of people that like them but I think most of them are sort of boring unless they're way over the top and super detailed. I'm not going to do an ordinary or over the top landscape. A scene can also be a still life or a portrait. I decided to do a still life.







I kinda like the way this one turned out. I really like the little spot of sparkle. It's a freebie fake diamond tennis bracelet and a small pin the pin part broke off of. I hand sewed it on with invisible thread. That was a pain.









Don't you just love the way the lampshade turned out? Does it look crooked to you?

new quilt start!

This is the first applique block I have finished from the "My Secret Garden" quilt. I got most of the pieced blocks done at the retreat last weekend. There are some blocks that are both pieced and appliqued and some that are only one or the other.

August wall hanging

Finally! I stopped working on this series last July when we moved. I finally got back to work on it and finished August.

No name comes to mind immediately for this one though. All the others seem to have a built in name but this one doesn't.

I'm open to suggestions.

Train! Train!

The train is the Cumbres-Toltec that runs from Antonito Colorado to Chama New Mexico. It's a coal fired, narrow gauge steam engine. Bill and me at Antonito before we got on the train. We took the trip that runs to Osier and back to Antonito. That's still a good day's ride. It took from 10am until 4:30pm.

There were several stunning views like this one.

Christin taking a picture of herself and grampa.

She's comin' round the bend!

We came out of a tunnel and BAM!! heart stopping canyon views!! 750 feet to the bottom!!

88 blocks!

I got 88 square in a square blocks done saturday. I used a new tool called a prep tool.

I used it to trim off the triangles so they matched up with the squares. I think the blocks still need squared up though.

This is my most favorite block. No two blocks are the same. These quilts really give me the opportunity to use up scraps and make all sorts of interesting fabric combinations.

progress!!

It feels so good to finally make real progress on things!! Even though the Carpenter's Wheel is in the list of things that are done the binding wasn't put on it yet and I got that done yesterday. I'm not in a huge hurry to get it done so I'll finish the binding next week when I go for the guild meeting. That way I don't have to drag the machine with me to sew for 3 or 4 hours.

I also got the top of the Midnight at the Oasis quilt done yesterday!! That's real progress! I got one corner on the wrong direction so I'll have to take that off and turn it around but that's a 15 minute fix. It's going to be a totally stunning quilt. I'm thinking because it's a very straight design that it needs feathers in the quilting. I should have taken a pic of it yesterday but I didn't think about it.

I think next up will be the butterfly kisses BOM in the original fabrics and two of the square in a square quilts. My husband's neice said she likes darker colors. The butterfly kisses original is darker colors. I didn't actually care much for the original fabrics but I loved the pattern so I went ahead and bought it. I had started a square in square for the great neice but she's just barely 3 so there wasn't a huge hurry and then she had a baby sister. If I'm going to make two of them I might as well go ahead and do them both at the same time so I've started cutting for the second one. When I get the blocks sewn I'll mix the blocks with the first set so they'll each get an even bigger variety of fabrics in their quilts. Mom and dad and 2 daughters will all have a quilt at the same time that way and I'll get rid of one I'm not all that crazy about. Works for me!!

more fabric store rantings

Okay so now they're saying "there's nothing close to me."

And then I search for them and find out there's 41 quilt stores in a state the size of New Jersey they can't drive to because "it's too far."

Don't people drive in those little tiny eastern states? Is 30 minutes so excessively far you can't go by yourself?

Hell, I drive 10 miles *one way* just for GAS!! I drive 96 miles *one way* to go to my quilt guild meetings and to sew for the afternoon with friends.

Sad, sad, sad, the ways people will put limitations on themselves and then turn around and whine about it.

controversial views

Apparently I hold some rather controversial views on fabric buying. I expressed surprise at how many people list walmart as a fabric source on a message board and got the standard "it's all I can afford" and "it's the only place within spitting distance" whines in return. I call bullshit. Every LQS puts fabric on sale and this isn't the horse and buggy days, you can drive farther than 10 minutes to get to a store.

I bought fabric for 3.50 a yard friday at a LQS. That's very affordable. Anybody that's posting on a message board is also perfectly capable of buying fabric online. I have bought fabric as low as 3.75 a yard online. And you don't even have to have a credit or debit card for most of the places. You can send them a check or money order.

Bullshit I say.

They say they don't need the quilt snobs telling them otherwise. I say they're shooting themselves in the foot buying fabric at walmart. Walmart demands its manufacturers lower their price by 10% every year. Once you've offshored the manufacturing to some country you can get away with 10 cent an hour wages the only way to lower costs is to start lowering the cost of the goods. That means cheaper quality griege goods and cheaper dyes. Then you lower the quality of the printing process. When the manufacturer has lowered the cost as far as possible then walmart just stops buying from them and finds a new manufacturer in another country that can pay 5 cents an hour and starts all over.

People will put their own neighbors and friends out of work just to buy cheap Chinese goods and then turn around and complain they can't afford anything else when their own good jobs left for China.

Yeah, I know it's controversial and an unpopular view. But ya know, I don't care. If everybody cared more about where their goods came from than how cheap they could get it this country would likely be a whole lot better off. Walmart has not done this country on any other country any good. If anything it has seriously hurt this country.

I've lived in poverty. Don't tell me "I can't" I know better.

Quilt class rebel

I belong to this big guild that only meets four times a year. The class in October is the Orion Star. The quilt shop owner here is giving the class. She wants everybody to purchase a $200.00 kit to take the class. But, the colors are UGLY. Or at least I think so. So I told her I would take the class but I want pink, yellow and orange. She said she would see if she could pull the fabric off the shelf in those colors. The off the shelf kit would include the backing fabric but it would still be $200. But. But. Even if I had to buy all the fat quarters at 2.50 that's still only 70 bucks and I know I can get quality backing fabric for a really reasonable price.





So, that means she's charging each person at least a $100 bucks for a class fee. I don't know about you all but that seems pretty excessive to me. Especially considering I took two classes from a national quilt teacher in April for $60 total for both classes. And this class is a sew on this line, cut on that line, remove paper class.



She called me back the other day because her store is never open and you have to call and make an appointment to shop there. When I called I didn't get an answer and I'm not driving all the way over there if she's not going to be there. So, when she called me back I told her I had taken a look at the fabric in my stash and I would rather make the quilt from my fabric stash and for her to figure out how much to charge me for the pattern and the Thangles and a class charge. She said she thought she could do that. I'm not paying more than 40 bucks. I don't mind people making a profit but I think she's gouging people.



Then two days later at the other guild meeting she totally ignored me.




I pulled these from my stash. I need one more orange. I have a couple I can still choose from if I can't find one that goes in this range better. The fabric they're sitting on will be the main border and there's an orange and a pink that I have enough of for an inner border and the binding. I *know* she doesn't have near the selection in these colors in her store that I have right in my own stash.

scraps happen

And happen and happen and happen. I've got a three drawer cart crammed full of scraps. That's the biggest problem, it's crammed. Just any old way.

So my next project is to dump it all out and at least sort by color. That way when I look for the perfect yellow to make a sunflower I don't have to dig thru all three drawers! And then I'll quit just stuffing the scraps in there.

While I sort I'll cut 5 inch and 4 inch squares for a scrap quilt for a great niece. I make a square in a square block and they're sashed in black. I have one started for a great niece and then she had a baby sister so now I need two of them. These two will be #7 & #8 of these quilts I've made. Everybody keeps having girls. The one in the pic isn't as pink as the first few I made. I'll make sure I get more pink, yellow, orange and purple in the next two.

Oh and I have the August "Year in a Snap" block done finally! I may go ahead and get the rest of the blocks done before I quilt them since I have a month and a half to go before I need to have the August block ready to hang. Plus that gives me time to go thru the scrap bins. That way I can find what I'm looking for for the next 4 blocks.

Do something with this shirt!!

This is the wall hanging I made for my father in law. My mother in law said "do something with this shirt and I'll pay you for it." It took me a while to figure out something to do with it but once I did it didn't take long to make the wall hanging. I'm really happy with the way it came out.

SAD

No, I'm not unhappy. That's Seasonal Affective Disorder. Most people think of winter depression when they hear the term SAD. A small percentage of the population suffers from summer SAD. Summer SAD is insomnia due to too much sunlight. I just read about a study they did in some northern latitude countries on suicide rates. They go UP in the summer. It's all that midnight sun that keeps people awake.

I've come to think of it as nap season. I really can't take drugs for the most part, I'm either waaaaaaay too sensitive or allergic to everything for that. I can at least nap during the day when the light level stays the same. If I can go to sleep in the afternoon then I can take a half decent nap. My room is very dark even during the day so that helps some.

Needless to say I don't get as much done during the couple of months of nap season. The worst is from about the end of May until the middle of August or so.

I live for fall.

a quilt show! plus! bonus!

I went to the quilt show in Denver a week ago. Oh my!! Loads of totally cool quilts and awesome work! I fogot my camera so you'll just have to take my word. One of the coolest quilts was a Judge's Choice winner. It was called "Bouncing Bubbles." It was the simplest "turning 20" type of pattern done in vibrant colors. It was what she did with the quilting and embellishing that made it a real stand out. As suggested by the name the quilting was circles. There were about three sizes of circles over the quilt and she did something different in each circle and then embellished with hot fuse crystals and beads. Oh so cool! I suppose I should also tell you about the best of show. It was an appliqued scene of a bridge over a stream with trees and rocks and such. What made it so outstanding was the size of the applique pieces and the style it was done in. Most of the pieces were about half the size of a regular postage stamp and they were irregular in shape then they were individually raw edge appliqued and it was multi layered to give it tons of depth. Plus she got the perspective exactly right and her water was flat.


Plus! Bonus! I got to hang with my bff. She really is a bff. (that's a best friend forever for all you non texters)


We've been thru a wide range of crafting and needlework together over the years. I finally settled on quilts and she's gone off in a whole new direction building doll houses. Or rather miniature houses. They're soooooo cool!! It's a good thing too, her macrame always looked like something the cat hacked up and her crochet squares always ended up sort of triangular. Her doll houses are perfect though and she does "dressed beds" that are just to die for gorgeous! She adds silk embroidery pillows to some of the beds for a real special touch.


I have one of her earliest doll houses. It's called the Lilly. She "bashed" it for me and turned it into a New Orleans French Quarter style house. Bashing means she changed it from it's original style. Originally the balcony was just a roof and it didn't have French doors and it didn't have that ultra cool back screen door. My Lilly lives in the middle 1930s.




I brought home another doll house. This one is the Laurel and it's done in a midwest farm house style. It's going to live in the middle 1950s. You can check out some of her work on her blog. It's over there ----> in the blog list, Deb's minis. She's done some seriously cool work.

she killed it!!

M. Problem was so offensive and so many people complained the email group owner is deleting the list!

I knew it was bad but I didn't know how many people had complained about her.

I'm handstitching the binding of Josh's quilt today. I should have it finished in the next couple of days.

Madam Problem makes a total ass of herself

I am just stunned at what she said at the retreat. One of the women in the group is African-American. She's a terrific person. M. Problem was sitting at the same table as Jessica along with 5 other people. Jessica had a heart attack earlier this year and had gotten several get well cards from her friends. One of them had a picture of Michelle Obama on it. M. Problem says "what's this doing in here?" Jessica says "it's a get well card" Then M. Problems says "Michelle Obama is butt ugly." I didn't hear what was said back to her after that comment but then she also added "those people look like chimpanzies." Unbelievable!!! I am *very* impressed Jessica did not get up and rip her head off.

And that was just for starters. She carried on all weekend about her boobs. She had reduction surgery earlier this year so she wants to show off her new boobs to everyone. mmmmm, nobody gives a shit. She was pretty "in your face" about it too.

Plus she does this whole "lesbian" act all weekend making comments and rubbing on people when she hugs them. At least half the women at the retreat are 60+. Most of them find it really offensive. And I think if the rest of the women that were there stopped and really thought about it they'd find it offensive too since she's being very degrading towards anyone who is lesbian.

M. Problem thinks she's popular, funny and cute. She's none of that. She's offensive, loud, and obnoxious. She might be an attractive person but her personality makes her ugly. Makes me real happy she's still not speaking to me.

Retreat!!!

An online group I belong to is having a retreat next weekend. I am soooooooooo ready!! I'm not sure yet which projects I'll be taking. I need to look thru everything I'm working on now and see what stage it's in. I would rather take things that are already cut so I can spend the whole weekend sewing. The retreat starts friday at noon and runs thru sunday afternoon. It's at a gorgeous hunting lodge. The building we use for the sewing room was the original dining hall so it also has a great kitchen we can use. We'll all bring food for part of the meals and then go to the new dining hall/lodge for the rest of the meals.

The picture is a view from the deck of the new lodge. You can see the road below that winds across the river and back down to the old dining hall where we sew.

A perfect blizzard

How could a blizzard be perfect you ask? Well, it can start on thursday night so you get a four day weekend!! I could probably get out but I'm not in any hurry to. I don't have to be at work until tuesday at 1.

quilt progress!!

I have the Posh top together! I am really happy with the way it turned out. I love that border fabric!

I also picked up Josh's tractor quilt and the Carpenter's Wheel quilt from the long arm quilter. I had the quilt store over in Liberal quilt these two for me since I just don't have the time or space to do them myself right now.

I wouldn't call the tractor quilt pretty. For that matter the fabrics don't even really go together. But it works. The tan looks a lot like a summer fallow field and the green looks like corn or soybeans if you were flying over the fields. The main thing is it's definitely a boy quilt and Josh is going to love it!!

The Carpenter's Wheel is actually a dark burgandy, a tone on tone gray and a gray with pink roses. The burgandy is way too orangy in this pic.

The perfect excuse...

to haul all the fat quarters out of the dresser!!

Fat Quarter Bingo!!!! Wohooo!!! Last year the pots were around 700 fqs for each group.

I needed to get all the fat quarters out and get them sorted by color again but I just haven't had the energy. Well, it's time for fat quarter bingo on the HGTV quilt message board again. I think that's what you call motivation!!

Plus when I win I have to have that dresser all organized so the new ones will fit!! LOL

What a difference a week makes!

What a difference a week can make!!

I went back to my old doctor on tuesday. It's just a little over an hour and a half drive so it's not really all that far to go see him. Plus if I schedule my appointments on the right days I can go to the quilt store. So anyway, I told him I was going to have to change docs because they weren't in my insurance network. He took me to the office and they're going to get in my insurance network so I don't have to change doctors!!!

Then wednesday I drove 3 hours one way to take the Census Bureau test so I can work for them this fall. I missed one question so I'll be at the top of the hire list. I mapped the route before I left and did both fastest and shortest routes and the time difference was only two minutes so I took one way over and the other way back home. I'm glad I went the way I did, I found a quilt store on the way home!! It's a great little store in Waynoka Oklahoma.

On tuesday I got the first two sections of the block of the month and then wednesday's shopping got me 7 peach and pink fat quarters, 2 yards of the palest pink fairy frost, 4 yards of a purple swirly fabric, a fat quarter table runner pattern and a kit and pattern for a really cool heart shaped pop up sewing case.

The end to this week is going to be great. Hubby and I are going to Amarillo saturday to celebrate our unaversary. That's an anniversary on years there's no 29th.

Ahhhhhhhhh, much better now!!

bitch of a week

For the most part this week sucked. It started off bad on monday and didn't really start to improve until thursday.

Monday I was supposed to go see a new doctor. I get over there and they demand my SS card. I didn't bring it with me because I just don't carry it number one, and number two you're not required to give that number out anyway. I even offered to pay cash for the office visit and they refused to see me. The stupid bitch actually thought I would make another appointment and come back later!! No fucking way after the shitty way I was treated. I came home and called my doctor in Lakin and I'll go on tuesday. He's out of the insurance network but at the moment I don't care.

Monday evening after work I went shopping at this really funky discount store here. I left my debit card at the store and didn't discover it until tuesday night.

Sunday I had switched the satellite receiver box to the supposedly new one they sent since the old one's hard drive had failed. Bill said it had been shutting itself off. Uhhh, okay. So monday night I settle in after work to watch my shows and the damn thing shuts itself off and won't come back on right. I called tech support and we got it working again. The tech told me he would put notes on my account so that if it did it again in the next two hours the next tech could escalate the support. That soooooooooo didn't happen!!! The reciever shut itself off in about an hour and a half. The second tech I got was apparently an idiot and basically refused to any thing but the minimum required to get it working again and refused to send me a new one. The fucking thing actually shut off *while* she was doing tech support and she didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with it. I finally got tired of talking to her and just hung up after she got it working for the 3rd time that night.

Tuesday morning I get up and call tech support yet again because the fucking thing wasn't working and I knew Bill would be home in about an hour and would want ESPN. I had the third tech reactivate my old box so we could at least watch tv until another receiver could be sent. He was at least helpful in that way. But he didn't get the original receiver on the account right and when Bill got home there was no ESPN. So I called tech support yet again. This time I got the only person there that seems to have the slightest clue what they're doing and she got the original receiver back on the account so we could at least watch tv and made sure they were sending another new box.

And then tuesday while I was at work I get a voice mail on my cell phone saying my internet wasn't paid this month. I called them earlier in the month to change debit cards on the account because the bank changed card processing companies and sent new cards with 4 whole days notice. I asked the kid what the last four numbers of the card that is on the account were and the person that changed card numbers for me put it in wrong!! That's when I discovered my debit card was gone.

And it didn't end there. I got a notice from the town they were going to shut off my water because the bill hadn't been paid for two months. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHH!! I go to the bank's website and print off the two pages to show it had indeed been paid thru bill pay. I sent Bill to the town office. I didn't think it would be a good idea for me to go in there at that point. I suspect I'm the only person in this whole fucking place that uses bill pay and nobody is smart enough to figure out what the fuck it is!!

And to end the week I had a customer cop an attitude on me and then go throw a fit to the manager yesterday. She is apparently under the impression that because she runs a day care in her home she gets to deduct her entire family budget including all their clothing, food, lotto tickets and dog food. She got the attitude when I asked her why she wanted to file married filing separate. As a rule it's the worst filing status there is. And then it went downhill from there. One of the first things at the top of the deductions on the schedule C is the vehicle expenses. I ask her if she uses her vehicle to transport the kids and she said she does sometimes. I asked her what her vehicle was and when she put it in service. She couldn't figure out when she put the vehicle in service because she's been doing day care for 5 years but just got her license last August so she started it then, but she wants deductions for the whole year. Then she blew up and picked all of her stuff up and stomped off. I think she does day care because she's too fucking stupid to work anywhere else.

wave after wave...

Of the "great unwashed." People that make less than 12K a year and seem to have a problem disciplining their kids and with personal hygiene.

I have 107 hours on this paycheck and I'll probably put in even more hours the next two weeks. Needless to say I get no sewing done and I'm lucky if I even get laundry done!!