Still around - sorta

We're having major LIFE happening around our house lately so I've been really quiet.  Don't know yet if everything will be OK - it's a day-by-day process.   Not too much happening in the quilting either - except the binding is done on The Rebel and now I really like the quilt!   I'm still rolling through everyones' blogs and I'll be back when the dust settles.

Have a good one, whatever it is!

A GRAND mail day!

It was Bren!! Bren was my swap partner for 4SQS/summer, and looky what she made for me!!

To say I'm excited is a little understated -- I love this! And BREN made it! LOL - it's fantastic, and check out the hand stitching, it's so fine! AND to make it even sweeter - 2 magazines that I really like and never buy for myself -

THANK YOU Bren! It's so cool to have a Secret Sister and have it turn out to be someone you "know" - I'm so tickled! In the same mail day was my new exercise bike - quiet, comfortable and easy to ride:

(Looky, Mama! I got it!) My Mom has one of these and I rode hers a bit in Utah and gee, you can't ask for nicer. I need to exercise more - who doesn't? - and DH hates my treadmill with a passion, it's too noisy. I like to watch TV when I exercise, and do it early in the morning, so that pretty well killed THAT. So the bike is silent, nary a whisper from it, and as comfortable as my easy chair. Our local stores don't carry it so it came from a CyberStore, arriving yesterday with my beeeyootiful 4SQS. Happy me!

Today I'm cleaning like a crazy woman - I host Bunko this Wednesday night and it's always a huge production. This group always goes all out, and every party is a Martha Stewart production, complete with full dinner for 12, dessert/coffee/great prizes/etc. So the carpet in my family room, under the bike above, was kind of grungy and it got shampooed this morning. HUGE job - all the family room furniture is outside in the carport. I need to come up with a menu, shop, get all the gifts together and wrapped, make up fancy score cards, shop some more and on Wednesday thank goodness I get off work early. HOWEVER - I don't have tomorrow to do anything because tomorrow I have to make that dreaded 150 mile round trip for DGS' first birthday party and that will effectively wipe out an entire day of preparation. PLUS I haven't finished the tablecloths. Am I in trouble or what? Guess I better get a move on....Thanks for stopping by!

Civil War Skirmish Won by North

I don't get it - I really don't. Last night I sat down with the Rebel again, after changing a 3rd new needle and re-threading for the 32nd time. And it was like BUTTA!!! I got the whole top quilted in about 2 hours without a single broken thread!

Why? What was different from Sunday when I stomped out in a rage? I didn't do anything that I hadn't already done over and over and over....... I just don't get it. I'm beginning to convince myself that this quilt is possessed by the spirit of a prankster Rebel solider, harassing me because I live in NORTHERN California. No? OK, so that's pretty far out there, but do you have an explanation? Did I earn some good quilting juju somewhere? LOL - who knows? But isn't it fun?
On the new job front, it's like Heaven!   Tuesdays are our busy days when she sees patients in the office and I do an anemia clinic, meaning I give injections to patients with nephrogenic anemia. Between us there can be 10 or 20 patients in a day and we're hoppin' so no chance of boredom there, but on Fridays I could give myself a complete manicure and pedicure and not disrupt anything. Can't have that! I'm one that needs to earn that salary and stay occupied.
Not quite as occupied as the last job tho - oh no no. I still talk to folks over there on a daily basis, and my heart bleeds for them but at the same time I take a deep breath and SMILE. Not this sista - I'm all better now!
Now how's YOUR day?

A Rant and a Rave

WARNING - seriously disturbed quilter about to GO OFF!
I've been wrestling ALL DAY trying to quilt The Rebel, and I have 3 squares done to show for it. Three. The entire rest of the time I've been fighting my sewing machine trying to figure out WHY the thread breaks every 4 minutes!!! (see previous problem with the Bunco dice appliques....) What gives? I got out the book and did everything it says to do, and I did everything I could think of. New needle. Re-thread (no lie, did that about 30 times!!!) different thread. Adjust tension/foot pressure/speed. I'm so ready to throw something! I could just scream, I'm so frustrated. WHAT could possibly be going on that suddenly I can't quilt? This is free-motion straight line quilting I'm doing on this, more or less kind of following the lines of the block but no, it's not in the ditch or 1/4 inch. There's one 4 inch line of stitching on one block that I've picked out SIX times because the thread broke in the middle every stinkin' time. Not even over a cross seam, just right in the middle of a perfectly flat piece of fabric. Now that I've decided that obviously my Janome is sick and needs to see a doctor that makes me even madder because the Janome is only a few months old and the Janome Doc is 75 miles away!! Have I mentioned I hate hate hate making that drive and it's time consuming and expensive? I need to scream and throw something REAL BAD. I know, "temper temper.........." and yes, I'm in one for sure! Maybe the underlying reason for the tantrum is that I didn't go to the quilt show after all. DDIL's mom and aunt are both sick, and 80% of my reason for wanting to go was to spend time with them. DDIL isn't too into quilting so I didn't drag her along, and I'll get to see them both next weekend at DGS's first birthday party. Geez, another 1 year old grandson! Since I was home I made myself a bright summery new purse:

The stripes are pieced and I put in my first purse zipper! Whoo-hoo for me! I'm so tickled with that. It has problems, to be sure, but it zips and everything! LOL - it's also loaded with pockets, inside and out. The outside has 3 pockets on each side, of varying sizes. Sunglasses, cell phone, pens - see the pens sticking out of their pocket above? I design my purses to be the way I want them, and I want pockets.

And wonder of wonders, I even got the strips to match along the zipper - that was amazing, can't believe I did that. And the stupid sewing machine didn't give me any grief on that!! I really think it's The Rebel - it hates me.
Ahhh, flowers. I still don't have much of a yard or garden, but I do have some bloomers and these are amazing - they're plain old 4 o'clocks, only they're not plain, for sure:

There's every conceivable combination of pink, yellow and white all mixed up in the same flower. They look like clowns! Or like a 3 year old painted them. No two are the same even on the same branch - it's so fun to see so many odd looking flowers all together.

Well, I'm still pretty hot so I guess I had better go eat some ice cream and try to calm down. It might take 2 bowls of ice cream in this heat!
I hope you're having a better sew day than I am -- Happy Sunday!

it's FAIR time!

Summer is fair time all over the place and last night I went to the "big" fair 75 miles away with my daughter and DGD. Actually - my daughter dragged me, coerced, begged, threatened, whined, cajoled......get the picture? All because of a band that was playing there - 3 Dog Night. A zillion years ago, (1973) I was pregnant with my second child and I loved that band, so decided to name the child after one of the singers, Cory Wells. Nice neutral name, uncommon at the time and I liked the ring to it. So when the child was a girl I fretted about the name being too androgynous and I wanted to make sure she would never be called by the draft board thinking they had a guy - so her middle name is Elizabeth. "Make no mistake, Draft Board Guys - this is a GIRL so don't draft her!!!" Children being what they are, she grew up and joined the Air Force and went to war in Bosnia. Oh well -- what are ya gonna do? So this has been a favored family story since then and one my daughter loves, and loves to tell. When she heard that THIS GUY was going to be in her town, at a free show at the fair no less, there was no question but that we would go see him.

On a 'school night' no less, I left work and drove 75 miles to her house, we jumped in her truck and beat it to the fair. The concert was a blast - we were surrounded by my contemporaries and we all sang and danced through the entire show. DGD loved it, she didn't know any of the songs but she loved being there and dancing and had her Ga-ma and Mama and everything was perfect. If you remember one of their big hits was a party anthem, "Mama told me not to go" about some poor guy ending up at a drug-soaked party he didn't really want to be at. They launched into that, and about half way through stopped and told a long story about music, changing times, yada yada yada that culminated in a RAP version of the same song! ROFL - it was really funny, but they about got booed off the stage. I don't know if it was tongue in cheek or not, but it was hilarious.
After the show we hit a few of the fair 'must-sees', including the crafts buildings where this magnificent 6 foot tall model of San Francisco was displayed:

Made entirely from toothpicks!! Intertwined all throughout is a slide that the guy rolls balls thru, they go all over the place. Amazing. Of course I had to go see the quilts, but only a fast trot thru there because DGD was starting to whine. This was my favorite --

Finally we dragged ourselves back to DD's place and I crashed there for the night. This morning I got up way early, showered and cleaned up and in the kitchen was met by the cutest coffee-maker in the world! She climbs up there and gets coffee beans down, measures out the right amount and grinds them correctly, fills the pot with the right amount of water and pours it carefully into the coffeemaker and makes a FINE cup 'o joe. Did I mention she's 4 years old?

Armed with that sweet cup of coffee I high-tailed it 75 miles back up the road and skidded into my office with ONE minute to spare. Whew! Glad I don't do that every day! Except that, first thing tomorrow morning I jump in my car again and go BACK DOWN to meet up with my DDIL and 1 yr old grandson, then we'll go another 30 miles south and meet up with her mom and aunt, and the 5 of us will take in a quilt show and a bit of fabric indulgence. Whew! No wonder I'm pooped!! Quilt show pics coming soon! Have a great weekend and thanks for visiting!