Caution - February 28, 2025

Last night, I started quilting the 20th and final block of Granddaughter #3's quilt.  I didn't get far because my arthritic right index finger was acting up, and my left hand was sore from having been stabbed in the palm TWICE while whittling earlier in the day.  I probably won't finish the quilting tonight - it is margarita night, you know - but it will likely be done by Sunday night.  The next job will be sewing the blocks together.

Since both of my hands are sore, I decided that today's task would be to do the machine-sewing part of joining the blocks.  I grabbed two blocks off the stack and took them to the machine.  The machine was threaded with a light taupe thread, needle and bobbin.  I changed the bobbin thread to white, but sewed halfway down my seam before I realized that I had not changed the needle thread.  I said a couple of nasty words, ripped out the seam, and IMMEDIATELY DID THE SAME THING AGAIN.  

What the actual f***?!

I left it.

It's on the inside of the quilt, and it's light enough that it won't show through the fabric.  

I pressed the seam open, trimmed off the over-lapping batting, and hand-stitched the batting edges together.  Then I pressed the block tops' seam allowances under and pinned them in place.  I'll blind stitch the seams by hand.

There may be an issue down the road, when I've sewn the quilted blocks into rows, and it's time to sew the rows together.  The seams may not match perfectly, and there probably won't be a heck of a lot I can do about it.  

We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I still haven't decided how to bind the quilt.  The quilt is mostly white, with blue, green, and rose embroidery.  A pop of color around the edge might be nice.   Once the blocks are all sewn together, I'll put it on the bed, take its picture, and try some "digital" borders on for size with a paint program.

I've thought about doing a scalloped border, but can't decide how to do it.  Do I just make a chain of half-circles, join them together, and attach them using the same techniques as I used to join the blocks?  And how many do I need?  How big should they be?  OMG, I hate doing math . . . . 

That settles it.  Big 18" scallops, same size as the blocks.

Wonder how to do the corners?

Another bridge . . . . 

Anyway, I started all that to say that, considering my lack of mindfulness for the past couple of days, I should be cautious today.  Herman, the household trickster, is showing out.  ;)

  

Birdwatching - February 25, 2025

I'm having my coffee on the back porch this morning, watching the birds congregate where I tossed out a cupful of bird food.  It's the first day that the temperature has been above freezing at this time of day.  There are cardinals, wrens, chickadees, woodpeckers, titmice, sparrows, and blue jays.  The woodpeckers and the jays run the table.  I probably should have fed them somewhere else, as there will likely be a patch of weeds in that spot come spring. 

I have been trying to train the birds to associate my voice with food.  Every morning when I go out to the porch, I yell, "Hey, birds!  It's time for breakfast!" before I pitch out a cup of food.  This morning, just after I made my "call," the wren squawked a few times, and pretty soon the whole wren family came fluttering in.  

The woodpecker drills the fiberglass basketball goal a couple of times before he comes down for a bite.  I wonder if he's doing Morse Code to tell his partner that the buffet is about to start.    

Anyway . . . . 

This warm weather is making me itch to plant.  Or rake the leaves out of the flower beds.  Or something.  But it's a little early for that.  There are probably still some freezing temperatures in our future.  

Plus, I'm lazy.

And yesterday the mailman delivered a bag of 1" x 1" x 4" chunks of basswood.  So, I could whittle instead of doing yardwork.  ;)

Or work on Granddaughter #3's quilt.  If I'd work at it all day, I could finish the quilting.  The next-to-last block is in progress now.  When the quilting is done, the blocks will have to be sewn together.  I've decided to machine-stitch the blocks' backing, remove the over-lapping batting, and blind-stitching the top.  (I've already tried this with a couple of blocks.  It works.)  And then it'll need binding.  

Maybe it'll be done by summer, when #3's birthday rolls around.

The Gang - February 23, 2025

Let me introduce you to my gang of poets, thieves, and such, courtesy of LINKER - YouTube and alec la casse - YouTube and a few others.  They're lined up in birth order.  

Try not to laugh. 

Or laugh yourself silly.  I don't care. :)

Left to right:

Actually, the left-most one is missing.  The Little Rotten Baby painted him purple and took him home with her. Here he is in his pre-purple state:

The oblong thing in the front of the line-up was meant to be a 'possum.  Or a mouse.  Or an armadillo.  Or an alligator.

The one on the right was shaping up to be William Shakespeare.  Or George Washington. Or Henry Winkler.  Or Billy Bob Thornton from Sling Blade.  

If I had written this post yesterday morning, I would have said that nary a one of the figures is finished (some are beyond repair, having lost noses and such).  However, yesterday afternoon I admitted to myself that I am never going to do anything else to them, so, in a sense, they ARE finished, unless I let the granddaughters have at them with paint.

But what to do with them?  It seems wrong to just rake them into the trash can.

So, if I can figure out how to do it, I'm going to put them on strings and hang them so that they knock together when the wind blows.  

Saturday - February 18, 2025

Saturday was our wedding anniversary.   

Forty-five years. Hard to believe.

My anniversary gift to The Husband was concert tickets.  His gift to me was a - I guess you'd call it a "sun catcher" - a heart-shaped plaque featuring a gray-haired couple and our names and wedding date.  It came with a suction cup hanger.  I was standing by the kitchen stove, about to start breakfast, when The Husband presented it to me, along with a card.  Since the stove was not on, I read the card and opened the gift right there on the stove top.  Cute!  After examining everything, I put the sun catcher back in the box and moved it away from the stove so that I could cook.  Later that morning, The Husband decided to hang it up, but could not find the hanger.  

I looked everywhere for the hanger.  Re-traced my steps all over the house.  Meanwhile, The Husband dug around in the junk drawer, found an old suction cup hanger, and stuck the sun catcher to the inside of the storm door.  

All day, I remained vexed by the disappearance of the suction cup.  I HAD NOT MOVED FROM THE STOVE before putting the stuff back in the box.  Where could the suction cup be?  Eventually, I gave up looking for it.  Maybe there hadn't even been a suction cup in the box. Maybe I'd imagined it.

We went out to dinner that night.  Just as we got out of the car to go into the restaurant, the weather app on my phone started screaming a tornado WARNING.  Black clouds swarmed overhead.  We figured we were about as safe in the restaurant as anywhere, short of a storm shelter, so we went inside and had dinner.

The next morning, when I was putting biscuits in the oven . . . . 

See it?  I slid the towel aside to take the picture.

According to the weather report, it's supposed to start snowing this afternoon.  

I have had enough of winter.

Valentine's Day - February 14, 2025

 The Grandson texted me at 7 a.m. yesterday morning.  

"Do you know if you'll be busy after 3 today?"

I said I would be free.

"Well, you used to run a flower shop, right?" 

I said yes, in another life.

"So you'd know how to make a really good bouquet, I'm assuming?" 

I said maybe and told him to come on over after school.

As expected, he arrived empty-handed.  We went to Kroger.

The floral department was a sea of red, pink, and white flowers and balloons. The sight and smell brought back some not-to-pleasant 30-year-old memories and a few funny ones.  My favorite story is about the guy who came in and ordered 11 roses, with the card to read, "If you're wondering why there are only 11 beauties, just look in the mirror and you'll see the 12th."  He thought it was ever so romantic and clever.  The next day, he came back and ordered one more rose, with the message, "Here's the 12th, you butthead."

But I digress.

The Grandson picked out flowers and candy.  We brought them back to my house, arranged the flowers, wrapped them, and tied a pretty bow around the stems. He intends to present his gifts to his young lady after school today.  

(There is a woodpecker drumming on a fiberglass basketball goal in our back yard.  Since he keeps doing it, I guess he must be enjoying the sound.)

This morning, The Husband and I did our usual Valentine's Day routine of exchanging cards and candy.  I got him a chocolate bar shaped like a pickup truck (how redneck is that?).  It's probably terrible chocolate, but it's cute.  :)

Tonight, our margarita place will probably be even more crowded than usual.  How dare these interlopers complicate our margarita night!  ;)

My mojo isn't working today.  Hasn't worked all weekend.  

Saturday morning, while we were still lazing around after breakfast, The Grandson called, wanting to borrow a necktie for an event happening at school later that night.  He showed up mid-afternoon and stayed until time to pick up his date. 

The Husband spent most of the morning attempting to get Nanny some TV service that suits her.  We got her a new smart(er) TV for Christmas, knowing that she was about to discontinue her old cable service in favor of internet TV.  The change hasn't gone well.  We installed apps to get her to most of her favorite programs, but getting to the local channels proved to be a challenge for her and us.  We should've called in one of the grandchildren.  

When not engaged in strictly necessary duties, I spent the weekend quilting and whittling.  I've got 3.5 (out of 20) blocks left to hand quilt before I have to decide how I'm going to set them together.  The quilting goes fairly fast, especially on nights when there's something worth watching on TV, but my sore finger won't let me work at either quilting or whittling for very long stretches.  Saturday, I carved a little raccoon that currently looks more like a long-tailed bear. Hopefully, his species will be more apparent once he's painted.  Last night, I tried carving a little old woman but accidentally cut off so many of her body parts that her gender - and maybe even her species! - is questionable.  

I have not yet tried to paint any of my whittlings.  They need to be oiled first.  This weekend, I bought linseed oil for that purpose.

I should go do it.

Sib Day - February 6, 2025

Yesterday, my siblings and I hung out together for a couple of hours.  We started with lunch at a local (to me) restaurant.  We sat and talked for a long time, then my brother said, "I think I'm going to take a drive.  Who wants to go?"  My sister and I said to count us in.  The sibs followed me to my house to drop off my car, and I climbed in with them.

We drove past our grandfather's farm and the house where we grew up (Son #1 lives there now).  We drove down through the river bottom, reminiscing about the times we'd been there with our father.  We drove to the cemetery where nearly 200 years' worth of our ancestors are buried.  When our route was complete, we came back to my house for coffee.  It was a fun visit.

Later, as I was standing at the stove, cooking supper, my back started itching.  I scratched it through my shirt, but it kept itching, so I reached under my shirt to give it a good scratch.  When my nails went across the itchy spot, I felt something move, as if I'd scratched across a big, floppy skin tag.  I did not remember having a skin tag there, so I went to the bathroom to have a look in the mirror.  The itchy spot was inflamed and red, and there appeared to be a clump of dried blood stuck to it.  I reached around to remove it, and had to YANK it three times before it came off.  IT WAS A TICK!  I nearly went spastic.  

I took off my shirt and got out a hand mirror to examine the spot.  It seemed that there was something hanging out of it.  After a bit of scraping and pinching, I pulled a thread-like thing from the center of the spot.  I guess it was the tick's proboscis, or whatever it's called.  I nearly went spastic again, and when The Husband came home a few minutes later, I made him examine the spot with a magnifying glass to make sure no tick parts remained.

I didn't sleep much last night for scratching and thinking about ticks.

Check yourself!

LRB Day - February 5, 2025

Yesterday, I babysat the Little Rotten Baby for a few hours.  

Her little curly-headed self strutted in about noon, carrying a bag of Cheetos and a travel mug full of sweet tea.  About the first thing she said to me was, "I'm gonna need you to get my horse."  She was talking about the big wooden rocking horse that my father-in-law built for Granddaughter #1's first Christmas, nearly 20 years ago.  Every grandchild in the family has claimed it for a time.  It weighs about 30 pounds and cannot be moved without mashing a toe or bruising a shin.  I wrestled it from the spare bedroom to the living room, and she climbed on and began issuing other directives.  

When she tired of the rocking horse, we worked a jigsaw puzzle, read some books, and drew "talky faces" on our thumbs and index fingers.  Eventually, she ventured into the kitchen and spied the wooden carvings on the table.  She brought one to me and said, "I need to paint this."  

She paints with watercolors every time she comes over, but I hadn't yet let her get into the acrylic paints.  I almost said "no."  All of the little figures lacked fine detail work, and I wanted to finish them before painting them.  

On the other hand, they're all pretty crappy, and what would I do with them, anyway?

So I got out the acrylic paints, stripped the LRB down to her drawers (so she wouldn't get paint on her clothes), and gave her the owl, my first carving, the worst of the lot.  

The paints she picked out were not very owlish - pink, seafoam green, robin's egg blue, and purple.  I did not discourage her color choices, but I did show her pictures of real owls and played some hoots for her.  She started with pink and made her way through the rest of the colors, and so for a while her owl was a rainbow, but he was 100% purple when she took him home.

Saturday doings - February 2, 2025

Yesterday, we had stuff to do.  At 11 a.m., we went to a memorial service for someone The Husband had worked with.  He was one of the best dudes I have ever known.  He was 89 and had only recently stopped volunteering at a local men's mission.  His kind-hearted ways reminded me of my daddy.  

The memorial service was over at noon.  There was a meal in the church fellowship hall after the service, but I did not want to stay for it.  At 2, there was to be a "new vendor presentation" at a local farmer's market, where my BFF and I are considering setting up a booth to sell our handiwork.  Even though it'll probably be next year before we'll be ready to do a booth, I wanted to go to this meeting to see what we'll be facing if/when we decide to go for it.  We were out of there by 3.

The last thing on my list was to return the Bob Ross toaster to Hobby Lobby.  Pictures on my phone indicate that I bought this toaster on January 9.  I made toast with it as soon as I got home from the store and was sorely disappointed at the image on it left on the bread.  Also, it felt flimsy, and the slots were so shallow that the top of the bread didn't toast.  After a few uses, the knobs started to misbehave.  In short, it was a piece of crap, and after using it a few times, I decided to return it.  It was the principle of the thing.  Unfortunately, by then, I'd discarded the box, but I had saved the receipt (a miracle in itself) and our old toaster.

I'd cleared the return with the store manager earlier in the week, after breakfast with The Aunts.  I didn't have the toaster with me at the time, so the manager said to ask for her when I returned the toaster.  So we go into the store, and I asked for the manager by name.  Well, guess what?  She no longer works there.  An associate went looking for the current manager.

When I saw this woman coming, I expected trouble. She was scowling.  I was prepared to go full-on Towanda on her.  She wanted to argue with me, but I quickly raised my voice loud enough for bystanders to hear and said, "It's a piece of crap, and not worth what I paid for it, and I'd like my money back."  Surprisingly, the woman backed down and authorized the return.

Took me a good hour to get my adrenaline level down.

Beaver - February 1, 2025

I've had the heebie-jeebies all week.  Bad news on TV, and frustration over people not getting right back to me when I have questions had me all stirred up.  After writing yesterday's post, I gave myself a good talking-to about this week's lack of productivity.  I tidied up my workspace and sat down to paint watercolor Valentine's Day cards for my grandchildren.  I whipped out three of the five cards in nothing flat, then I decided to scour YouTube for ideas for the other two.

And, wouldn't you know it, YouTube sneaked in suggestions about things totally un-related to Valentine's Day, and I got side-tracked.

Carve a Simple Beaver -Knife Only Tutorial (1x1 series)

I'd watched a few minutes of this carving tutorial earlier in the week and had even marked out some carving lines on a 1" x 1" x 4" chunk of basswood.  The beaver, himself, was supposed to turn out only 2" tall, but I was carving him on a 4" tall stick so I'd have more to hold onto while I worked.  (The plan was to cut off the excess later.)  I put on my gloves, picked up my knife, and got to work.

Having accidentally cut off the noses and ears of everything I'd carved to date, I was expecting the beaver's teeth to give me trouble.  Sure enough, they did.  But by the time The Husband got home from work, I'd managed a somewhat respectable first draft.

Try not to laugh. 

When he came into the kitchen, I asked, "Want to see my beaver?"

His eyebrows went up.

"It's on a pedestal," I added, snickering, as I showed him my handiwork.

He nodded.  "It's been mounted," he said.

Cracked me up.  :)

The beaver is still a little fuzzy, needs some cleaning up.  And its pedestal must come off before I can finish its feet. But I've got other obligations this weekend, so the beaver will have to wait.