Monday Morning Plans

We had dinner (tamales!) with Carrie and her In-Laws on Saturday night.  I am so glad Carrie has a great relationship with Fayne.  I was so hated by Frank's mother and father, and she barraged Frank with such negative thoughts about me constantly.  It is something that affected my entire life.  It seemed like there was never anyone in my corner.

I ate too much and definitely went off my diet!

So I need to find some veggie recipes for the week.  He insists on eating some sort of meat at lunch so I am working to find less meat/fish/beans in our night meal.  

I am working kitting some things to take with me to Retreat in a few weeks.  Here are the things I need in the next months:

1.  Raffle Quilt for Greater Swiss Mountain Dog Rescue (It will be a bright one)
2.  REME October Challenge (Black and White and a Color)
3.  River City February Challenge (Secondary Patter
4.  A buttload of Quilts that need to be quilted!

The Swissy Raffle quilt has a linen tea towel with a Saint Bernard on it.  It has the Swiss Cross and I was thinking at first to make a quilt with the crosses, like the Locked and Loaded one.  I really don't have a choice of colors in there.  I wonder who was on drugs when they made this tea towel!

Can you see that lower right corner?  That is the "pattern" I will generally follow.  I think it will be a spectacular quilt actually.  And the colors may be fantastic.  Here is another example of working outside your box.  These colors are definitely NOT in my box.

I was choosing some fabrics for the Swissy Raffle Quilt for the Rescue Organization.  Pat Saxon put out call for donations.  Swissy Rescue has rehomed 9 of 13 dogs pulled from homes across the US this year.  Nearly twice as many as they have in past years.  This is where you see the difference between a good breeder and a not so good breeder.  A good breeder will take their puppy from an owner at any stage in that dog's life.  A good breeder will make sure the pups they produce always have a good home and are willing to step up.

If you are not willing to do this, DO NOT BREED!  There are so many dogs out there, find your chosen breed and work to get all dogs into good homes. 

I want organizations like CAAWS to no longer be needed!

I have my Jane Dunnewold Class I need to work on as well.  It is frustrating because my computer does not like to show videos and it gets stuck on one photo while she describes the topic of the week on 15 others.  I have pretty much forsaken the class because I am tired of fighting it for an hour or two.

This computer has failed miserably in what it was supposed to do for me.  I wanted one that be for editing photos and creating slideshows and showcasing the quilt work.   But I fight this one.

And then there is the keypad that is finicky and randomly chooses a letter to not work every day or two.

And I spent so much money on it I have to keep it till it dies.........can you say accidental death?

Yeah.  Accidental.

From "UFO" to "In Line At The Long Arm"

On Saturday, I was working hard at cooking and quilting all the live long day!

I decided that we needed tamales, having eaten the last package many months ago.  I got meats, corn husks and masa.  You might think that here in Louisiana we know nothing of tamales.  Au contraire, mon ami!  There are a lot of Cajun families who celebrate holidays and the High Holy Days with tamales!  You might find a bit of crawfish in there, but they are tamales nonetheless!

Every time I make tamales, I have to go to YouTube and refresh myself with the way to roll them.  This time I started off and I forgot to soak the husks.  Last time I used the papers, and I have to admit it was a lot easier than the husks.

And they stayed together better than the husks.  I lost about 3 in each for the pots I steamed.  But I saved the juice for tortilla soup, one of Carrie's favorite things!

While I finished up the last batch I noticed some bugs on my stove.  The Formosan termites are swarming in the neighborhood right now and there they were in the hood vent.  We spent the next two hours vacuuming them up.  My kitchen is a mess with stuff moved out of its place everywhere.

They are attracted to light and as soon as we turned the light off they stopped coming in.  We have Terminex treat our house every year, so there is not too much concern for an infestation, but it was uncomfortable thinking of it.   Will call on Monday and get them to come and look.

Then he decided that he needed to fix the bottom of the cabinet under the sink, more stuff came out.  I notice I have 4 red bottles of some such thing.  Maybe I need to go through and toss stuff.........

Quilts.......

I spent some time in and out of the quilt room over the course of the day.  While I was working I finished up listening to Sue Monk Kidd's The Invention Of Wings.  I have no idea how she came to that title.  It is about two abolitionist sisters pre-Civil War Charleston.  I started in listening to Amanda Berry's new book Hope about the Cleveland kidnapping of her, Gina Dejesus and Michelle Knight.  Castro was a real monster.  In the beginning chapter she expresses regret that he killed himself rather than remain in captivity like he forced them to for 11 years.

 My friend Joni made herself some note cards with the name of each UFO she had.  And in several weeks she cleared up a whole stack of cards!  I thought it might be a good way to focus on my unbelievable group of UFOs.  There are not enough cards in the city for the ones I have!  But I filled up all the cards I could find.

So the Lily Stack and whack was the first one I pulled.  That top and back is done.




The second card was the Star quilt.  That needed quilting so I made a back for it and it is ready.







 The third, yes, I am on THREE!  The third one was the Lotto Spools. I won those at a River City Guild meeting maybe 4 years ago.  They were in rows and needed to be out together.  And a back made.  DONE!

Next week I have a guy coming to put film on my windows, but after that I am ready to quilt these three babies!  That should keep me out of trouble for a while.