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I’m a MOMMA!

Well, I was already a cat mom, but now I’m a puppy mom!  Lola (my puppy’s biological mom) delivered Nine (count ‘em 9) puppies on July the 11th (Sisters Quilt Show Day).  There are five males and four females, and I have second pick of the males.  I’m sure it will be difficult to pick one.  I get to bring my little bundle of joy home the last weekend in August.  I’m supposed to be away at the coast that weekend, so I guess I have a few things to work out.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m so excited.  I already have treats and toys and a leash and collar.  I have a kennel that I’ve used for the cats, but they never go anywhere.  BB&B has a foldable one that I may pick up with the coupon.  

I’m still amazed that a 13 lb. mini-Schnauzer had 9 puppies!  Pictures to come soon.

Heaven

Okay – I’ve had weight loss surgery, but I still love to eat.  I went outside this evening to grill a nice ribeye on the barbie.  Yes, I cut most of the fat off first, and I can barely eat half of the steak.  While I was grilling, I took a look around the back 40, and look what I found.

 

Marionberries!

Marionberries!

No, not the former mayor of Washington, DC.  Marionberries are classified as a blackberry.  They are a cross between the Chehalem and Olallieberries, which are descended from crossing Raspberries, Blackberries, and Dewberries, going through Loganberries and Pacific Blackberries on the way.  Anyway, you can look all that stuff up on Wikipedia.  The important thing here is these are delicious!  Once I digest my wonderfully grilled steak (a couple of hours work), I will probably put a little bit of Splenda and some half-n-half on these and have them for my dessert.  Oh YUM!  While I don’t love days when it’s close to 100 degrees, I do love the abundance of summer.

Well, it was another scorcher here in Oregon.  I went to a barbeque at my brother’s in-law’s house (my brother married my best friend [at the time], so now she’s my sister in law).  It was so hot out, we ended up eating in the house instead of staying outside.  It was funny – all the younger folks were in the kitchen, while my brother’s father-in-law and his 90 year old brother were in the living room watching Wayne’s World!   I guess the heat does strange things to people.  At any rate, it was fun to see family and friends again.

 

Out on the deck before it got too hot

Out on the deck before it got too hot

In Grandpa's kitchen

In Grandpa's kitchen

 

Every party needs a baby!  Phoenix with his mamma, Lacey

Every party needs a baby! Phoenix with his mamma, Lacey

 

Phoenix's Grandma, Feather, with Ursula the Skiperkee

Phoenix's Grandma, Feather, with Ursula the Skiperkee. My brother Ted at the grill in the background.

 

Phoenix with Ursula and Leelu

Phoenix with Ursula and Leelu

Hope you all had a great 4th.  I’m back home, I’m too full, but the air conditioning is on full blast.  Ahhhhhh!

Well, I have to admit that I knew it would be the minute I saw the demo on Judy’s blog.  I have been making a Rangeley Stars quilt, designed by Deb Tucker, and I’ve been using Deb’s Quilter’s Magic Wand and Tucker Trimmer to trim my HSTs and QSTs.  I like this better.  Don’t get me wrong.  Deb’s tools are great, and they make piecing that very complicated-looking block a breeze, but the one big advantage this ruler has over the combination of her two, is that I won’t lose the wand!!  The gals started laughing at me at our last quilting retreat because I kept losing my Quilter’s Wand.  The June Tailor Ruler has it built right in.  I did use my regular ruler when I couldn’t find the wand, but having the ability to mark both sides of the square so you can quickly sew and cut is a major bonus.  The June Tailor Ruler, like Deb’s has the ‘X’ in the middle which helps you line up your QSTs so accurately that you just can’t mess up (well, most of you can’t — I sometimes can if I’m not paying attention!).  I highly recommend the June Tailor Perfect Half- and Quarter-Square Triangle Ruler.  (I also have to say I recommend Deb Tucker’s patterns and taking a class from her if you get the chance.  She’s an awesome teacher and knows how to save a quilter time on fabulously-pieced blocks).  

Rating:  A+  I don’t think this ruler will gather dust on your selves if you like to piece.  It is a very useful tool for being accurate in your piecing.

Present!

I turned the corner onto my street this afternoon just in time to see the UPS man jumping into his truck, and I knew that he had just been to my house.  I could feel it.  I couldn’t remember what I ordered, and it turned out I didn’t order anything, but I received a lovely surprise.  Judy Laquidara, who was so very helpful to me when I was starting my longarm career and knew absolutely nothing about longarm quilting, had a little drawing on her blog for a really nifty trimming ruler for half- and quarter-square triangles.  This particular ruler is made my June Tailor and I was one of the lucky winners in the drawing!  Thank you so much to Judy and to June Tailor.

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I did a quilt on Sunday for a brand new quilter.  I had picked the quilt up at the LQS at the beginning of May.  I knew the quilt was wonky, but I didn’t really take the time to inspect just how wonky.  There was just something about this first-time quilter that struck me.  You know when you’ve met a genuinely nice person.  She was so excited about her quilt, but at the same time she was apologetic because she knew she had made it without any instruction and that it wasn’t the best quilt in the world.  Still, she had made it and she felt she wanted it quilted so she could enjoy it.  In cases like those, I gladly do the best I can to make the quilt nice and make the customer happy that she has embarked on this journey of increasingly more wonderful quilts.  Her fabric choices were sunny and bright too, and it made me happy just to look at the quilt.  So, I got it out of the bag and loaded it.  OY!  The eight inch squares were parallelograms, trapezoids, and rectangles.  The seam intersections did not all meet, and the seam allowances were 5/8″.  Still, I was not afraid, because I knew I had the miracle of the Circle Lord Baptist Fans on my side.  Here are some photos of the quilt with it’s wonkiness on the frame:  DSCN0757DSCN0760And here are some pictures of the finished quilt.  You can see that the arcs of the Baptist Fan helped to smooth out the fullness of the piecing and it turned out to be a cute little quilt.  The customer loved it, and I have a feeling it won’t be the last quilt she ever makes.  She’s got the class list from the LQS, she now knows about 1/4″ seams and square rulers, and she was very excited to get her quilt back.

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A new quilter and, hopefully, a loyal customer, is born!

Retreat!

What a wonderful life it would be if we could go from quilting retreat to quilting retreat.  I just came home from four days at Silver Falls State Park. We stay in the lodges, have our meals prepared for us every day, and have a great big meeting hall where 24 of us fit comfortably and sew till the wee hours of the morning.  I worked on my Rangeley Stars quilt (picture shown here IMG_2790 is of the pattern by Deb Tucker, http://www.studio180design.net).  With Deb’s permission, I will be teaching a class on this quilt at the Ocean Waves Quilt Camp (by Jane’s Fabric Patch) in October.  Here is a photo of a few of the blocks I have assembled for the center of my quilt.  

 

DSCN0734In addition to sewing, we get to hike the wonderful trails at the park, including the main river gorge with 10 waterfalls.  One of my favorite parts of the retreat is the campfire.  Our chefs prepared our fire for us this time and it ignited instantly and was a lovely blaze.  DSCN0721We sit around the fire, share home-made liqueurs, wine, stories, marshmallows, s’mores, and lots of laughs.  This year we had caramel marshmallows, chocolate marshmallows, and even roasted peeps!

On Saturday, our director of fun, Adonna (I really think she should be dubbed Queen or Empress of Fun, as she does such a wonderful job), taught a sun painting class.  Here are some of the gals displaying their projects.DSCN0735DSCN0739There were only two problems with this retreat.  One, I forgot to slather on the bug repellent I brought with me, and the no-see-ums ate me alive.  I’m still scratching!  Two, I had to come home to reality.  Ah, but I can dream of the next getaway — Ocean Waves Quilt Camp in the fall!

Big doin’s in Oregon this weekend.  The SUN is out!  After lots and lots of rain, we’re in for a super sunny weekend with temperatures that may reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday.  This is cause for palpable excitement amongst folks who are said to have webs growing between their toes to help them plod through the rain.  Every office on campus I called today, and every business I needed to contact in town, had such a cheery person on the other end of the phone.  Each call ended with “Have a nice weekend!  It’s supposed to be so nice!”  Ah, the simple pleasures we get when we are used to living with cloud cover.  Now we all need to be careful not to burn to a crisp.  We Oregonians tend to be fair-skinned from lack of sunshine.  No pigment there to protect us from the sun’s rays.  Lather up with that sun block everyone, or there are sure to be blisters by Monday.  ;-)   I for one tend to stay out of the sun.  Burns us it does, my Prrreccciousssssssss!

Another cause for excitement is that I get to go visit my niece and nephew on Sunday.  Yes, I’ll be going to stay with Max and Sophie and my dear friend Ronda.  Ah, the things we have planned.  It should be a good time if we don’t get thrown in the clink first.  tee hee

Have a great weekend all!  It’s supposed to be so nice!

It’s really great to see a little bit of sunshine today.  There has been far too much rain here in Oregon lately.  My brother (bless him) mowed my lawn while I was away at MQX and the grass is already growing out of control again.  I’m getting that “kill the grass and turn it all to bark mulch” desire again!  Actually, I’d love to make a nice English Country Garden out of the front yard.  Lots of tall beautiful perennials waving in the breeze.  I’m a fan of snapdragons, sunflowers, monkshood, foxglove, delphinium, cardinal lobelia, cone flowers, and lots and lots of roses.  As long as you can keep them watered and keep the weeds down, they are so much easier to care for than a lawn.  If I had the time to get out there and plot out the beds and lay the irrigation tubing, I’d do it, but I think it may have to wait a year or two.

I’m off to a start on my Creativity Challenge for MQX 2010.    I’ve got the pieces all traced out and stapled to layers of applique’ paper (from Purple Daisiesllc.com).  I’ll get all the little pieces cut out tonight and then I’ll begin making the flowers and other motifs from a selection of lovely silk/cotton blends that I’ve had in my stash for a while.  I do promise to use some of my least favorite colors.  These would be the intensely warm colors of yellow, orange, etc.  I’m basically a cool color gal – greens, purples, magentas, maybe a little red (on the warmer side I guess), with a little bit of blue thrown in.  We’ll see if I can warm up with a bit of yellow, gold and orange!

Hope you’re all off to a good day.  Spring is coming!

And I am not a celestial being, despite the last name.  While I would prefer to use my blog for quilting and positive life stories, there comes a time in life when one needs to defend oneself, particularly when one has been slammed on the internet.  I’ll not use the slander word, as I don’t want anyone’s shorts in that much of a bundle.  Especially the litigious subject of this post.

 

Almost a year and a half ago, two of my friends lost their sons to tragedy.  The quilting community banded together to make quilts (as we do) to help bring them comfort and let them know we wished to be there and help in any way we could, while we realized that nothing we had to offer could ever take away the pain they were feeling.  In the midst of this, a woman who I had always held in high regard posted the following on her blog:

 

“Magnificent Monday

February 18, 2008 by Christine Olson

Phew! I’ve been sick for almost three weeks now. The flu, infections and capping it off with a MAJOR eczema attack! And exactly how much mucous can the human body actually produce??? According to the news, a flu shot may not have help me to not get sick but it might’ve help in reducing the severity of the attack.
Even though I remain a bit crabby from being sick and tired of being sick and tired, I am thankful for this magnificent Monday! Thank the good Lord the weather finally decided to break and we have had glorious sunshine for the past couple days. Even feeling a bit groggy, it felt good to take a walk in the sunshine and hope for a quick arrival of spring. Alas, the weathermen are reporting another extended wave of crappy gray, wet and cold weather for a few more weeks. But I’ll take whatever hours of sunshine we can get.
As a result of my feeling under the weather, I’ve been fairly quiet on most of the quilting lists, even not reading some of them entirely. This has turned out to be a good thing. I have suspected for quite some time that 90% of that stuff frequently posted on these lists is nothing but unadulterated and self-indulgent crap. The fact that I can not read this stuff for days on end and never miss a thing of it, only confirms this suspicion. (I do recognize that for many, these lists are lifelines and there are some good free lists out there for those that “need” this type of thing.)
I have met some very good friends via the internet. However, I am not naive enough to think that I am much more than an acquaintance to 95% (or more) of the people I meet via this venue. In some ways, the internet quilting community becomes like a high tech chain letter. It is easy to get sucked into the game and fears of what someone might think of you creep insidiously into your thoughts when having to make tough choices, like do or do I not make a block(s) for this person’s or that person’s comfort quilt or do I make a donation to this person’s cause or continue instead to contribute to my local charitable cause.
I made an executive decision awhile back to treat these types pleas for help like I would a chain letter. I don’t bite. I can barely address the needs of my family and my community. I do not have the time, finances or desire to partake in the dramas of thousands of online quilters. I think of these ladies often, I correspond with a few and I remember many in prayer when I bother to pray these days. That is the best I choose to offer at this time. The world is too damn sad as it is without choosing to wallow in that sadness with people I do not truly know!
Whoa! That sounds cold and harsh, doesn’t it. Hmmmm…perhaps it is but no one can ever accuse me of being a two-faced bitch. What you see is what you get.
Ahh…the sun is calling me again. I think I need to take another walk. I took several pictures with my cell phone of spring poking its head out of people’s flower gardens yesterday. I’m going to see if I can figure out how to get them off the phone and onto my computer. A new challenge.
Speaking of computers, our old PC is officially TOAST! Yep, the hard drive is dead, dead, DEAD!
Thank God I backed up my book manuscripts and graphics on a CD, along with almost ALL our pictures. The sad thing is that we may have lost DS’s entire music collection. Most of it is still on his iPod but not all of it. We are going to have to send it out to someone to try and see if they can retrieve anything off the hard drive. Crap!
Oh, well. It’s only a computer… ”

 

I called her on her statements, thinking she could not possibly mean this, but she asserted that she was serious.

 

Fast forward to the present.  Christine has continued to try to post comments on my blog, follow me on Twitter, and generally harass me and my friends.  Now she has put up a blog post about what a mean person I am for rejecting her repeated attempts to stalk me.  She cannot understand why I would reject her continued attempts to contact me.  The fact is, I don’t like you Christine.  I consider you a mean spirited, shriveled and nasty soul.  Please leave me and my friends alone.  We don’t need or want your input.  Let it go.

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