Get the crap out of my house challenge

I loved the comment on the previous post that said: Thanks for bravely posting the pictures. 

You are quite welcome.  I have nothing to hide.  My Interior Designer Daughter won't even step foot into my room.  And my germ-a-phobic and OCD husband thinks I am a horrible person because I am messy.  And I still like myself! 

So I spent about two hours clearing out a corner.  And even though it does not look like it to you probably (the OCD hubby didn't think it was such a great effort at all) it really is.  It clears up a 2 x 2 foot space in front of my design wall that allowed me to rearrange the blocks to this. 

Yes, I am copying.  I am a copycat.  But i REALLY liked what she did

And I think I deserve a kudos for this cleaning up of my little corner.  Because I spent most of the morning helping hubby trim trees.  My main role in helping involves being available to take Tim the Toolman to the Emergency Room when he whacks something off or falls out of a tree or off a ladder or off the roof.  But it wasn't my fault that I wasn't home when he fell off the roof that time.  He knows the rules around here:

NO ONE IS TO USE ANY TOOLS, POWER OR NOT, WITHOUT AN ADULT PRESENT AND DOGS DO NOT COUNT.

He was good today and did not fall off/out of anything or break anything important.  He did, however, cut his finger on something, possibly the bow saw.    And he is now sporting several Transformer Bandaids.  There was blood and some whining, but he got over it.

glen

The Laundry Fairies are real, don't cha know

I had a lot of errands to do yesterday, as you read in the last post so I won't rehash.  If you didn't read then just know it was a lot and had some added on to it as the day waxed. (college word, our family likes to point them out for each other.)

So I asked my Alzheimer Mom if she wanted to go with me.  Of course, YES!  So I pick her up.  I was going to pick up her laundry, and bring it back clean tomorrow.  But when I got there the basket was empty.  I asked, Where are your dirty clothes?  She said clearly, I didn't have any dirty clothes.

I tend to get frustrated, but I wasn't there just yet, I just couldn't believe that there were no dirty clothes after 4 days.  (I was incredulous, how's that for a college word?)  So I plunged back in with, What do you do with your clothes you take off every night?  She responds with, I put them in the dirty clothes hamper right there, and points to the empty hamper.

I tried a different approach in a different voice, When you get undressed, where does your dirty underwear go?  In the dirty clothes hamper, she replies, getting a bit outdone with me,  They come in and clean my laundry.  And they bring it back folded.  (which I know is not me because I don't fold her stuff.)

So I walk over and pick up the empty hamper and upend it (crossword puzzle word here), and head over to her dresser because I am pretty sure at this point she is taking them off and putting them back in the drawer, maybe?  I begin to go through her unmentionables, and smell them.  Well, how else do you see if they are clean?  They LOOKED clean, but did they SMELL clean?  That was the question.

But the system failed me because I have a very stopped up head due to the fact that I live in an alien world with pollen that is trying to kill me.  So I just began to dump her unmentionables and unsmellables into the dirty clothes basket.  Well, I needed SOMETHING to take home and wash, didn't I????

When we returned from our errands, I walked her to the lobby to wait for the oldie but goodie film that was being shown in the chapel.  I found the head housekeeper lady, who knows everything about everybody there.  And I asked if her staff was doing my mom's laundry.  I wasn't paying for this particular service but thought maybe they might have been doing it anyway...........as a goodwill gesture........

No, she says, they are not.  So the Director Delores comes over and asks my mom, what happens to your dirty laundry?  My mom says.......they come in very very early every morning and take my laundry and clean it.  Oh? says Delores, It sounds like you have the Laundry Fairies!

To which, my mom turns to me, puts her hands on her hips (looking just like a petulant 3 year old) and says to me with a really smug looking grin on her face:  See!  I told you they were doing my laundry!

The housekeeper had to pick Director Delores up off the floor and together they limped away trying to keep the laughter that wracked their bodies from being noticed by my petulant, smug mother. 

They left me standing there fighting convulsing fits of laughter!

I sure wish the Organization Fairies would come and clean up my sewing room........I promise I wouldn't laugh at them.

glen

V and Co said I had to do this

Yes, she sure did.  And I have been "meaning" to get around to cleaning up my quilt room.  I promise today, after I pick up my mom, get her to lunch, bring the quilts for the show to Norma's house in the next town over, bring my mom home, bring Hugeaux the Grand Dog home to Carrie's house, and get groceries for dinner, and dinner made because we are going to a Tea Party meeting tonight..........that I will begin to clean up.

I must take photos, because you won't believe what it looks like now.  You will ask yourself.....how does this woman quilt in a room like this.  I simply answer, a cluttered quilt room is the sign of pure genius, and I am smarter than anyone I know!  LOL.

glen

Changes....maybe

I decided to see what this would look like.  I put the Swissy Quilt up in the banner area of the blog head.  But I don't like it so big.  It is actually too big for me.  But since Valerie just said she loved it, I will leave it for a while and see if it grows on me.   That and I can't figure out how to make it smaller.  Maybe I can figure that out in my copious free time!

The quilt is my Swissy Quilt of Valor I made for a specific Colonel in the US Marine Corps.  He is not only a soldier hero but he is a Swissy owner.  The pattern is Billie Lauder's "Who's on My Quilt?".  That is the book that has my first Swissy Quilt and Dutch on the back cover!  Check it out on her website.  My 15minutes of fame!

The good thing about Swissys is that they all look alike.  If you go to the National Club site at http://www.gsmdca.org/ you can see for yourself.  If you go to Southbound's site, that is the regional club of which I sit on the board, at http://www.southboundgsmdc.org/  you can see the Southern Swissys.  They all look alike.  They all have thick black coats (with the rare exception of a blue and even rarer red coat), they all have that white blaze on the face, with brown eye spots and cheek marks; and they all have white feet with brown between the black and the white.  And they all have the white tip on the tail.  And the white chest with the brown shoulder splotches.  Yes, all of them.

So it is very easy to make a Swissy quilt for anyone in the club.  I often do a raffle quilt and they fight over it's amazing beauty and spend lots of money to win it!

glen

Quilt naming

When i was little my dad taught me to do math using a horse racing form.  It might not have been approved by the Board of Education but we had fun.  I would figure the odds and then decide which horse to bet on.  Of course, I had to use my own allowance.  And he was fair, if I won, he would pay off.  But if I lost, I owed him money!

I used to love to read the horse's names.  They were so fun and imaginative.  When I got into dog showing I would buy the dog show catalogues and sit in the hotel rooms reading the names of the dogs.  I love the names of things, I guess.

So when I began to quilt, I was overjoyed to find that people "named" quilts too!  This was the sport for me!  it is such a process to name a quilt.  Just like naming a dog, it has to be the perfect name.  In the Swissy World they always caution an owner as to the name, it may prophecy things the owner may not want!  Like Jumping Jack Flash -- he was notorious for escaping from his crate and running like the wind to the next county! 

But I think I have hit on the most perfect way to name quilts.  No more of the plain names that everyone has.  Like the Blooming 9 Patch.  27 people in the guild make it and they all call it the Blooming 9 Patch!  No way for me!  I have to have a totally original name.

What got me to thinking about this naming thing was Judy L's Design Wall Monday posts.  If you hop over to the Patchwork Place every Monday you can see what everyone has on their design walls.  She provides a place to link your site.  We have become wonderful and encouraging friends. 

Most people will have a level of protection on their sites where you have to key a random word into a box in order for your conversation to post to their sites.  It prevents spam.  And some of these "words" are really fun!  Like today I had:

 undishnox

fabsharly
wacthom
stilcut
calimalco
pressimo

And I thought------What great names for a quilt!    I have so many UFO's here I need names for.  I am all over this!

glen:  Now: Ovedister  --  was: Grapes Without Borders!

PPS -- Today I posted to WhistleStop Blog and the word was Mingrapo!  I love it!

Desigh wall monday 7-26-10

In my quest to be in the numbers prior to the 40's I am once again creating this post the night before.  I am determined to be in the 20's or something.  I did some research and noticed that the first posts are generally in the 5 AM to 6 AM range.  So I will set my alarm for EARLY.......considering that I go to sleep around 3 AM it won't be easy, but I will sacrifice for the sake of those higher number goals!

So today my design wall is pretty much the same as last week but what I am working on is two-fold.  One of my guilds, The Sassi Strippers, is putting on a Quilt Show in two weeks and anything that goes in needs to have a hanging sleeve. Since I don't normally put hanging sleeves on anything, I am busily putting hangings sleeves on my stuff. 

And the other thing is a wild and crazy hair to HAND QUILT the Lemon Lime Quilt.  This will be a UFO which will excite our UFO chair lady, get a UFO off my floor and hopefully satisfy my urge to hand quilt something.  I hope to get that out of my system.  But then I am kinda liking it.  But then I have only started it last night.

I will tell you more about the quilt show later own.  It is a first for our group and has been a secret dream of mine for about 5 years now.

glen:  I DID IT!  Goal accomplished, I am #12!  Although I was so excited I prematurely keyboarded and am just a "g" out there.   I guess I felt like I had to go incognito!

Evil Blogspot and Merry Christmas

See that post from yesterday?  The blank one?  I was witty and cute and introspective and worthy of a Pulitzer.  And Blogspot lost it.

I was mulling over the calendar.  It went sort of like this:  I took my mother to the Neurologist on Thursday.  It was a good visit, I think she is improving her concentration because she is here and more stimulated and in a clean environment with food.  The most impacting thing Doc said to me was, "Let me see her back in five months."

When I presented the appropriate paperwork to the Scheduler Lady she said, "Ok, five months would be December 22nd."  I nearly fainted!  Five months?  December 22nd?  Aughhhhh!

That means I have to begin the Quest for the Perfect Christmas Gift.  For everyone.  I saw in another blog, can't remember which one it was now, that she was leading a Homemade Christmas Gift Making thing.  Basically, you got a box, cover it with Christmas Paper and then every week you make a gift from the inspiration she presented.  Of course I didn't sign up, thinking I didn't really have the time.  One week she said, do something for the kitchen, and it was followed by multiple pictures of wonderful tea towels, pot cozies, place mats and hot mitts.  They were incredible.  And then you just put them in your box.  By December when you have to wrap gifts, you just go into your box, and combine the perfect items into a basket or some other really cute display.  And you have No Sweat Christmas Gifts.

So I decided I could do my own thing.  This week I made some cup cozies.  They turned out really nice with very little work.  And used up some scraps.  That was a good thing.  And I actually found the most perfect present for Valerie, but I won't tell you here because she reads the blog and I want the surprize factor.  (Here is a picture of Chloe the Smelly Basset instead of Valerie's perfect Christmas present.)  And then I made some fabric bookmarks for the Book Club Ladies.  (Valerie is a part of that too, but I am sure she won't blab to them.)

It felt like I was accomplishing some small thing toward the big event thing in the future.  I promised myself that I would begin to clean out my sewing room next week, it promises to be a lighter week than the last one.  I felt like the proverbial chicken with no head.  Right after I take Dutch on Monday to get his staples out, I handle the bank stuff for my mother, get her another toilet paper holder spring thingy since she threw the last one away with the empty roll, make sure I have hanging sleeves on all the quilts going to the quilt show the following week, and you know all the other normal week stuff.  Sigh.........

glen:  Almost Merry Christmas

So blogger and the construction have tried my patience today

This is the third time I have attempted to post here today.  Let's see if this actually makes it.  I went into my photo folder on the computer and pulled out all my Swissy Calendar photos from the last 6 years and put them all on a nice little, well big, disk.  Now maybe I can have room for more photos since I am gearing up to do another Swissy Calendar for the Southbound Club.    Here is Bo Nash modeling his January look.


What I was going to say earlier was this:

I forgot to say stuff about the pattern yesterday.  That gorgeous tiger hanging is from Toni Whitney of Bigfork Bay Cotton Company.  And it is done just like the others I did of my own pictures for the last two years.  I have done my house, a couple of Swissy pups and the Eiffel tower.   

This is Kiwi before I quilted her.  She was too cute, looking under my fence for a way out of there!  This quilt won me first place in the CFQG National Show two years ago.  And she has hung in two other unjudged shows, and has one coming up in August.  She is a popular girl!

Aside from Dutch tossing his cookies on the living room floor this afternoon, he is doing well after his surgery.  And I have uncovered a quilt that my mom and I did together about 2 years ago.  All it needs is to have the binding sewn down, so that is the perfect job for her.  She does fabulous work.  She is way more meticulous than I ever was or will be.  It is that memory thing that keeps her from doing any work now.  But she can certainly do bindings nicely.  So we have a rhythm going together.  She binds and I do everything else!

glen

Look what I bought yesterday!

I am so excited.  But I did spend two days trying to find a place that will blow up large pages to larger pages.  I wanted to enlarge this tiger by 150% so I needed a place with a graphics plotter.

Finally found one today!  yeah!  Now to hunt down just the perfect fabrics!   What a fun weekend to look forward to.

 Is this not a gorgeous piece?  I was breathless when I saw the one this lady was working on at the quilt guild last week.  It is hanging in the shop now.  I would never let it out of my sight if I made one of these.  Although I think an LSU fan friend of mine will try to purloin it.  And I may have to make two of them to ransom mine back!

Do they have one like this that is a horse?  Or maybe a zebra?  Oh, I want the zebra.  Maybe I can make one myself. 

Maybe I better just get this one finished first.......

glen:  love love love the tiger boy

I am going to be first for Design Wall Monday!

Even if I have to CHEAT!  Yes, no matter how early I post in the morning, I always end up 30 or later.  Last week when I had a fighting chance at being in the 20's, blogger kept kicking me out of the program.  I couldn't get in until late afternoon.........and there I was in the 40's.  Aughhhhhh!

So now I am going to cheat.  I have not looked at the site to see if it is even up, but I will not sleep tonight if I have to so I can get upwards of the 20's.  I will make it higher, I will.

Oh, the design wall...yes....let's see if I even have anything on it.  Whew! yes, I do, sweeties.

On the design wall are the products of the 15 Minutes A Day Project from Bumble Beans.  You spend 15 minutes a day making fabric from scraps, square them up, and you have a block.  It is a mindless mindbending job, that teaches me to create wildly and insanely.  And It hit me this evening about what to do with them.

I will make a Swissy quilt.............huh?  Maybe..........

PS -- just looked at Judy's site, not up yet.  Sigh....another sleepless night for me I guess.
PPS -- darn darn darn.....I fell asleep and then had to leave early this morning and I am , what #41!  Aughhhhh----------next week, to the top!

Dutch is home and I got mail!

Dutch is home, sleeping it off, as they say.  He is shaved "down there" making him look really small without his fur covered private parts.  But he is home and that is what matters.  It looks like they took a very large area out and put some staples in his belly to hold him together.  He has a shot of rimadyl and some pills for tomorrow to make him feel better. 

He says all he wants to do is to go to sleep without Chloe's nose up his butt.......literally.  She won't leave him alone!

When we got home Frank got the mail and I had a HUGE package from Loft Creations!  It was exciting to rip the guts out of my package and discover it's soft center filling!  Too graphic???? Sorry.......check out what the package held!

Look at that fabulous button!  Don't you just love it?  And some blue rick rack........now where did that rick rack go off to????

Thanks, Stephanie!  I love the feel of everything!

Poor Dutch

Poor Dutch.  Tomorrow early I will take him away even before Frank gets up to feed them breakfast.  He has a lump on his belly side.  It is a small but insidious lump.  And we confirmed yesterday that it was mast cell cancer.

My very first Swissy Pepsi died at age 12 after a nearly year long battle with mast cell.  And the very next year Bonnie Doon was diagnosed with a mast cell tumor on her side.  That is when we found Turmeric.  And it saved Bonnie Doon's life. 

About 2 years ago, I found a lump on Dutch's ear where it joins the head, and we had that removed, it was mast cell cancer.  So he started getting turmeric.  But now we have this second one.

My wonderful vet says it is in a good place.  A good place is where they can get a deep cut with wide margins to make sure there are no cancer cells moving out.  And I have already upped his dosage of turmeric.

So my poor Dutch will be in surgery tomorrow and I will be a wreck until I get the pathology report in a week. 

glen:  good luck my boy, come home to me quickly.

The week has flown by

Yes it has, hasn't it.  I have joned a group blog that spends 15 minutes a day taking scraps of leftovers and sewing them back together to make new "fabric".  The idea is to make blocks then let your mind wander to figure out what it will become.  I have about 17 6.5 inch blocks from scraps of the oriental fabrics from the clamshell things.  (I did go and get mylar template material for the clamshells but have not gotten further than that.) 

You can check out Victoria from Bumble Beans 15 minute block play group at:

http://www.15minutesplay.com/

Design Wall Monday 7-12-2010

So far Blogger has kicked me off THREE times.  Let's see if I can get this post in before I get booted.

It has been a while since I posted to Design wall because I have been dealing with my mom and moving her into the assisted living apartment.  And the dentist, she had 9 cavities and cannot take anything with =caine in it to numb the drilling pain.  Sign.

So for some reason yesterday I thought to begin a clamshell quilt.  Not that I needed ANOTHER project to start over all the million UFO things hanging around.  But hey.

The Quilt Seed was planted when Carrie commandeered the container that held my oriental fabrics.  She unceremoniously dumped them in the midst of the cluttered worktable, I guess figuring I wouldn't notice.  Carrie is 25 and married and not even living here and she continues to mess up my house.

So here is my clamshells.  Oriental and black, so elegant.  I love them already.  The first thing I did was cut out the template from what I thought was the mylar material.  But when I went to iron the seam allowance curve, I melted the template post haste.

So I searched for my mylar material and never found it.  Instead I used some cardboard, but watch out if you do that, it can burn. 

glen:  it is called "making do when you are In The Mood"

pogaji

Oh I am in love.........again.  I must make this.  I have already ordered the shot cotton.  It took me all of 5 minutes to see this post at the Sillyboodilly and find the best price on shot anyone has ever seen!  LOL.

http://thesillyboodilly.blogspot.com/2010/07/pojagi-panel-2.html

I will keep you informed on my progress.

Meanwhile, go read my article in the Town Favorites Magazine!

http://www.townfavorites.com/foragoodcaawsN.htm

glen

Wow! This must be the best week of my life!

In addition to the Human Kindness award from Loft Creations  yesterday, I saw this this morning:

Frank and I went to Coffee Call this morning for New Orleans Coffee and Chicory and beignets and a muffin at our favorite breakfast place. And I happened to pick up the Town Favorites Magazine while he was hogging the newspaper. And lo and behold! Check out what I found.


I had forgotten about this coming out, I sent it to them over 2 months ago. Wahhhooooo!

http://www.townfavorites.com/foragoodcaawsN.htm

I write Lisa's colunm every once in a while.  In December she had a brain aneursym and has  been in rehab since she is out of the hospital.  I sure hope she is able to be on her own again soon.  In the meantime her friends have been filling in in her absence. 

I love the job, I wonder if they will give me my own column????????

glen:  wickedly grinning..................

Oh Oh Oh Oh I WON!!!!!

I Won!  I love it, I won!  the no Strings Attached Challenge from Stephanie at Loft Creations!  No, silly, not the WHOLE thing, just the Human Kindness Award! 

It was Stephanie's own string bag creation, 4 green fat quarters of Be Merry and 1 yard blue vintage rick rack!  Way Cool Stuff!  (That's WCS!)  (I can't wait to get that rick rack!  I am soooo into rick rack all of a sudden with that last string quilt!)


Special Category--HUMAN KINDNESS--WINNER--Glen at Quilts and Dogs (for donating the most string quilts to charity)

Funny thing was that while she was posting the winners of the various categories, I was out taking care of my friend Merilyn who is losing her sight and was going through a biopsy of her head to see if cancer was involved.  So I was hauling her back from the hospital where she had the minor surgery procedure when Loft Creations was emailing me to check the winners page!  LOL.

This is the very firstest thing I have ever won online like this.  I am SOOOOOO excited!  Thank you Stephanie, thank you soooo very much.  You can't imagine how you have made me feel inside.  Thank you more than you ever could know.

glen:  I just thought the rest of you wanted to hear me shamelessly brag a bit about my WINNING!!!!   LOL.

No Strings Attached!

Steffanie of Loft Creations has had this No Strings Attached Challenge for the last several months.  You make projects with strings and dash your stash!  I completed 14 projects.  And now there is voting on the best in a quilt or non-quilt category.  My projects did not make it, but hey, the ones that did are really fabulous. 

There is even a quilted ironing board cover!  Wow!

Anyway, she will give some prizes out for some unknown and secret catetgories.  I am hoping I get one of those at least!  There were 290 string projects made by 78 of the 151 participants.  Amazing.

Check out her blog and see the finalists!

http://loftcreations.blogspot.com/2010/07/parade-of-stringsviewers-choice.html

Yeah! Stephanie.  Thanks for letting me play!

glen

First the squirrels, then the hawks, now the ravagers of tomatos

After finding the delicate balance between bird feeder equipment and squirrel marauders, we came home from vacation to find the Red Tailed Hawk had devastated the population of birds using our feeder as base camp.  He must have used the fence on the car port as his perch because from there you can see both feeder locations.  And he methodically took out all the birds and a couple of the squirrels.

For the entire time we were gone, Valerie never had to refill the feeders, when I was refilling once and sometimes twice a day.  And I had counted 5 squirrels.  When we returned there was an eerie silence and deadpan empty back yard, no birds and no squirrels and the feeders were full.

Yesterday the birds slowly began to return, and you can tell they are different from the last set.  Not as used to the movements of the dogs.  And there are only two squirrels, not the requisite five.

So today I look out and see this guy munching down on my tomatoes. He had invited 5 of his friends to dine with him and they were making short work of the tomato bushes.  They disguise themselves to look like tomato leaves and actually are pretty good at it!  I didn't see them at all.  And when I knew they were there, it took me a while to find them all.  And I found another one just now that I had missed earlier.

So hopefully I have them all. I didn't mind the hawks taking out the squirrels, but I kinda liked the birds.  Too bad the hawks can't develop a taste for the caterpillar guys.  That hook would probably hurt going down though.

glen and the poor tomato bushes---------