Meet My New Sewing Machine

I've actually gotten it to sew. It looks a lot more complicated than it is. The top flips up; that's where the thread holder and bobbin winder are located. It's a little taller than my old one but much lighter in weight because it's all plastic. I get classes on how to use it. I'm going to take them; I learn much better when someone shows me how to do something. Although the manual is pretty good.

It was on sale; 40% off which brought the price down from $1100 to $700 plus tax. My limit that I wanted to spend was $700 so this worked out nicely. The saleswoman sat me down in front of a Bernina and told me she'd be right back. It was the most expensive machine in the store, $6,000. I quickly moved to another location and told her that I was not buying a Bernina.

Once I decided I really liked this one she still tried to move me up $400 to an adjacent Janome.

We took my old machine to the place that repaired it five weeks ago. I was getting ready to complain loudly when the manager of the store told me I had it on the wrong settings. I had fabric with me so he readjusted the settings and it sewed beautifully. This all occurred after I had purchased the new one. Oh well, every house needs two sewing machines. Now I have one to lend.

The Grinch Has Moved To Lincoln And He Broke My Sewing Machine

It is not working...AGAIN. One minute it was fine, the next it won't feed the fabric through. The feed dogs work just fine. Grrr!

I was in the middle of piecing a quilt block when it happened so now I am hand sewing the block together. Actually it's sort of fun to do it and think about the early quilters who had no choice but to hand sew. I'm sure that will wear off.

I had pledged fidelity to my ancient Sears Kenmore machine, but now I'm having second thoughts. I went on line to look at sewing machines on Consumer Reports. I'm going sewing machine shopping tomorrow in Sacramento. I'm going to a store that sells nothing but sewing machines and has reconditioned ones as well.

I'll get my old machine fixed and then just use it as a back up. I had decided to buy a new iron because the old one leaks water when I use the steam spray. Joann's fabric is having a sale on Rowenta irons so I may get one this week.

My Score

I stole this from a bunch of other bloggers.

Prayers And Positive Energy Needed

The lovely young girl in the bottom right hand photo is my friend Cathy. We grew up together except that she got polio and ended up in that chair. Now she scoots around Phoenix in a bright red scooter, very cool. As if polio wasn't enough, now she has breast cancer. She's been through all the tests and on Monday, Nov. 26th she will have a lumpectomy on her left breast; ten days later she will start radiation treatment (the seed kind).

She called me this morning to tell me about it and to ask for my prayers. I agreed and then decided I should get the universe of bloggers involved. So whether you pray, send energy or just think good thoughts, she needs them starting this Monday morning.

This is sort of a double whammy because she will not be able to use her left arm for ten days after the surgery. When your legs don't work you count on your arms to make up for them. So she will go to an extended care facility where her needs will be taken care of and she can heal until she can use her left arm. Good news is that her dog Buddy can visit and so can her husband Ray.

The dorky looking girl standing alone in two photos to the left is me. I look like I'm ready to enlist in one photo and practicing for my wedding day when I will cut the cake in the other one. The other photos are some of my friends in Robbinsdale, Minnesota probably around 1953. Notice the ugly wallpaper on our dining room walls. I remember it vividly. It was on all the walls. It was liking having a forest cave in on you if you were in the room too long.

Palm Desert And Carnegie Hall

There is a relationship between the two. I was in Palm Desert when Mark told me that he will play with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on Friday, Feb. 15, 2008. I know, it's a pretty feeble connection. I am so happy for him and so very proud.

Several years ago I bought him a T-shirt that said "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer on the back said, "practice, practice, practice." Well he did and he's going.

He auditioned for a spot with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra last year, came in second and has been called periodically ever since to substitute or play when there are additional trumpets needed for a piece. Two weeks before Carnegie Hall he will play the same program in St. Louis.

He hates it when I brag about him so when he reads this he will probably not be really happy. But, why have children if you can't brag.

Palm Desert was very relaxing. One day I spent the whole afternoon in bed watching a show about the "juiciest Hollywood couples of the year." It was so trashy but I loved every minute of it.

I did get quite exercised each night as I sat on the patio and watched the sprinklers turn on on the golf course in front of our villa (condo). This is the time of year when they reseed both courses. That means they water a lot. It just irks me that no one there thinks about it what they are doing to the Colorado River. I never saw a single purple pipe the whole time I was there. Waste water would be just fine for their precious grass.

I managed to not eat any beef the entire week. Kerry succumbed the last night we ate out but he only ate half of a very small steak. I just ate fish, a bit of chicken, cheese and salad and was just fine. One of the best dinners I had was a tamale stuffed with goat cheese and smothered in cheese and tomato sauce. The sweet tamale was perfect with the tart goat cheese.

The drive back and forth (533 miles each way) was uneventful and boring. The Prius got about 47 mpg, but we were driving 75 most of the time or it would have been better. I need to have my tire pressure checked again. You get better mileage when the pressure is up around 40.

We went to a quilt shop in Palm Desert; I was going through fabric withdrawal. Great shop. I bought some fabric, learned an important trick for keeping the quilt backing from wrinkling and got a nifty new tool to help me pin the quilt for quilting without destroying my fingers. Plus Susan found some beautiful fabric that she bought for a Thanksgiving table cloth.

Tomorrow I get my real crown for my mangled tooth. I got my Visa bill today. It would have been a whole lot less if I hadn't had that Tootsie Pop.

When Is A Desert Not A Desert?

Answer: in Palm Springs, CA. All the water you see in the photo is from the Colorado River. This is one of several reasons why the Colorado River is in danger. It's the Marriott Springs Resort in Palm Desert.

This is where we will be staying starting on Saturday night for seven days. The family timeshare is not in the hotel proper but is on the grounds of the hotel. It's a condo-type arrangement.

I'm always outraged at how the area around Palm Springs makes use of water. This hotel has a lake in the lobby! If you are staying at the hotel, you can take a boat from the lobby to some of the rooms and the restaurant. It's a big enough boat to carry life jackets plus it has to be inspected by the Coast Guard. As the boat leaves the lobby dock, two very large glass doors open and the boat passes out into the sunshine.

The timeshare is something that Kerry's dad bought several years before he died. Now the family enjoys it in November and February each year. Very laid back; lots of good food and company. I may not get a chance to post but I will be thinking about all of you...right.

Food, Glorious Food

We are having BLTs tonight for dinner. All the ingredients are within the 100-mile diet, except for the lettuce and the mayo. I know the lettuce is from California. The mayo is Best Foods.

Yesterday I got the bacon at the Farmers's Market from Bob at Coffee Pot Ranch in nearby Sheridan. The tomatoes are from Mulberry Lane Organic Farm ,which is across the field from me and the bread is from a small Roseville bakery which is not far away. I don't know where the wheat was grown. Kerry likes to have an egg on his BLT. Those are from our neighbor Mulberry Lane Organic Farm.

When we read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and discovered some things that we didn't like about mass-produced food we sort of talked about trying to eat differently. Slowly over time I've taken on the role of foraging for food. Not in the sense that cavemen and women did but in the sense that your supermarket does not have everything that is good for you. You search for what is good for you and in the process meet all kinds of wonderful people.

I never thought I would be this way. To me food has always been comfort; I didn't care where it came from as long as it filled me up. That has changed. Today I stood in line at Starbucks, gazed at the sweets and then just ordered a latte. I know, I know Starbucks is not everyone's favorite. But when you live where I live and want coffee you know that at Starbucks it has not been sitting on the burner for hours, you go for what you can count on...Starbucks.

Last night we had steak from a nearby rancher in Nevada County; it was delicious. The vegetables (three types of zucchini and tiny Japanese eggplant and onions) were from a local organic farm.

I'm sorry if I'm boring you with all of this, but I just feel like I have discovered food all over again. Just like "Oliver" said, it's food, glorious food.

An Iris Blooms In November

I've never had one bloom this time of year; it's one of the ones I transplanted because they were getting too crowded, which limits their blooming. I moved the rhizome in early September and here we are two months later and it's blooming.

It's been a busy weekend. We went to buy our tickets for the Placer County Art Tour that we do each year. We got the map and headed out to one of our favorites, but the gate was closed. So then we decided to go to a nearby winery that we like: Fawnridge. It's small and unpretentious with nice people running it. The husband still has his day job teaching psychology at two community colleges. They were the ones who told us we were a week too early for the art tour. So we tasted and bought some delicious wines including a port that I'm going to use on a pork roast I'm fixing today.

A photographer from the Sacramento Bee was there; she was delighted to see tasters because she was hoping to get some photos in the tasting room. There is a brouhaha going on in this county about wineries and their tasting rooms. Most of them are small and you travel down, sometimes private, and usually dirt roads to reach the tasting rooms. The county has written an ordinance that would restrict the operation of tasting rooms during most of the year. It's 18 pages long. Nevada County, which is right next to Placer, has a one-page ordinance. Anyway the Sacramento Bee is doing a story on this and wanted to have pictures at a small winery's tasting room. We obliged. I was ready for a nap after tasting wine at noon. The winery web site is: http://www.fawnridgewine.com


The Fawnridge winery owners also told us about the "100-mile diet" during the course of our conversation about the importance of buying wine locally. No, you don't have to walk 100 miles but you do try to make sure the food you buy was grown and produced within a 100-miles radius of your home. It's a great way to reduce carbon. The web site is: http://100milediet.org The web site allows you to put in your zip code so you get a map of what 100 miles looks like for you. Ours includes San Francisco. The couple who wrote the book live in Vancouver, B.C. so the web site can handle Canadian postal codes.

Thanks to them I've discovered more sources of locally grown meat and vegetables. My favorite place is Flying Mule Farm. They actually farm the old-fashioned way with mules. The farm raises goats, lamb and vegetables. In addition I found a farmer's market that stays open all year in nearby Auburn. It's a lot more fun to shop this way. My Prius produces less carbon than those huge semi trailer trucks that deliver to big grocery store chains.

Today, I just got off the treadmill and am going to spend the rest of the day quilting. It's 80 here today.

My Only Trick Or Treater

came to me on his mother's blog this morning. Max unfortunately decided he didn't want to go outside so there is a limited showing of his fantastic costume, which his mother made. Max is my sister's grandbaby; he lives in Minneapolis with mom, Minna, and dad, Michael.

We've never had trick or treaters at this house; we are too far off the road and the houses are too far apart. Kids go into town so they can get a lot of stuff in a short distance.

But every year we are prepared. The first few years we had a bag of bubble gum. That finally got so hard that no one's teeth could have survived biting into them. So Tuesday Kerry bought a new bag of bubble gum. After my expensive tootsie pop you can bet I'm not going near bubble gum.

My brother reported an interesting thing at Don's funeral on Tuesday. In Kentucky, where it took place, you can still smoke anywhere you want. The funeral home had ashtrays with their name and logo on them. And the ashtrays were being used. All sorts of ways to drum up business.

Well, that's all folks. The weather is warm and sunny here. My iris is even further along in the blooming process. I'll post a picture when it's open.

Another Quilting Project

This time I'm entering a contest; it's called a "challenge quilt." My quilt guild has one of these challenges each year at its February quilt show. You pay $10 and for that you receive a half yard of two different fabrics that you have to use in the quilt. This year's theme is Mardi Gras on the farm. One of the fabrics has the wild looking roosters; the other was the smaller colored blocks. I added the more normal type farm buildings and animals. The block is a variation on the Tic-Tac-Toe block. I got purple for the sashing and have ordered some fabric for a border from a company in New Jersey. The fabric has more of a human Mardi Gras theme. I'm also going to add some feathers here and there. We have to turn them into the guild by February 1. The members vote on them at the meeting that month. All the "challenge quilts" are displayed at the big quilt show the end of February with the first, second and third place winners in a special area.

I figured this was a way for a newbie quilter like me to get something in the show. Right now it measures 32 inches by 21 inches. It will get a bit bigger with the border and binding.

It's another beautiful day here so I'm going to fertilize my bulbs. I have an iris that is starting to bloom. It's one I transplanted; I guess it likes the new location.

A Death In The Family

These wonderful people became part of our family on July 4, 2004 when Charlotte, on the left, married my baby brother Richard. Her mother Nan is on the right and her baby brother Don is in the middle. Don died last night in a group home at the age of 48. His mother loved him dearly despite the problems he had dealing with life.

I never met him; he almost came to Richard and Charlotte's wedding but then decided it would be too much for him. I like this picture because of the look on Don's face. He's got his arm around his mom and that's all he needs to be happy. I'm not sure how he got to a group home, but that was where he spent the majority of his life.

My brother, who is the wordsmith in the family, wrote a wonderful eulogy for Don on his blog. Visit http://openwindowyoga.blogspot.com I stole the picture from there. Richard and Charlotte are in the air as I write on there way to Cincinnati to prepare for Don's funeral. In the end cigarettes did him in.

This is someone who never really had a chance; he had a family who loved him dearly but despite that there was something that kept him divided from the rest of society. He lived in his own cloistered and troubled world.

He will be laid to rest in the family cemetery in London, Kentucky. He went there a few months ago with his mom and picked out the place he wanted to be buried; right next to his dad. The family knew he was dying; his lungs were simply giving out. It happened on a Friday night about 10 p.m. The staff checked on him and he was fine, 15 minutes later they came back and he was dead. It was a quiet death; his roommate was not awakened by it. He deserved so much more in life, but at least he had a peaceful death. I hope all of you will say a prayer for Don and his family. Nan shouldn't have to see one of her children die. Children are supposed to outlive their parents.

A Very Expensive Tootsie Pop

I just got back from the dentist, and I'm still alive. Bless his heart he had nitrous oxide. Once we established my total fear of his drill he trotted it out and I slipped into a blissful state of relaxation. He's also really good with the Novocaine needle. I didn't feel a thing. He drilled the old tooth down to a nub, put on a temporary crown and charged me $945. I get the real thing on Nov. 19th. He did one thing I've never seen before; he gave me sunglasses to wear so the glare of the light wouldn't hurt my eyes. Turns out they are also safety glasses. What a nice idea. So I'm heading out to my knitting group tonight for good conversation, an occasional bit of knitting, good food and some wine.

I'll Never Eat A Tootsie Pop Again

Here's the completed quilt hanging on the wall between our bedroom on the right and our sitting room on the left. I bound it with the red fabric that is in the quilt; Kerry got a piece of bamboo from our bamboo grove and we hung it on the wall. I sewed a sleeve to the back of the quilt through which the bamboo pole passes. I know you have seen it many times in many different stages, but now it's finally done. That's Nora in the lower right hand corner.

Now for the Tootsie Pop. We ate at Lucille's last night. It's a rib place that offers you Tootsie Pops as you go out the door. I took one, ripped off the wrapper and proceeded to suck on it. It was grape. I thought to myself just suck slowly, no need to break a tooth. Well, I did anyway. My upper right hand side molar is half gone. This is not the first time for me. I see my dentist on Thursday at 2 p.m. I am a big wimp when I go to the dentist. This is my new dentist, which means I've been there twice a year for the past four years but all I've needed is a cleaning.

My old dentist in Lafayette who took care of my teeth for 31 years always gave me nitrous oxide when I had crowns done. If this guy doesn't use it I will be tempted to drive for two hours to my old dentist.

In the meantime, I am wearing my retainer which encloses all my upper teeth. That way my tongue doesn't keep running into the ragged edge of the tooth remains and I can eat and drink without pain.

My Latest Quilt...Sorta

The quilt guild that I now belong to is having a quilt show at the end of February. They need lots of signs that tell people not to touch the quilts on display. I took home the white sign in the middle and created the rest around it. I think I'm going to get another one. I've never started from scratch, especially with something in the middle whose size I couldn't control. I need the practice.

Halloween is a great time to be searching for scary fabric. I'm going to put a very somber gray binding around the whole thing.

My quilting buddy, Linda, and I took another class at Cabin Fever Quilt Shoppe last week. This one was about binding, which is the last step in making a quilt. I learned a great technique that really gives the quilt a nice look. I've now completed four quilts and done the correct binding on two of them. Like I've said before, it's a learning process.

Linda and I signed up for an applique class on Nov. 8. Right now she's running the flu clinic for the local Kaiser facility so she's sort of tired at the end of the day. The Nov. 8th class means she has to leave work early. I convinced her, rather easily, that it was the right thing to do. Then I don't take anything until Jan. 28 when I take hand quilting. Not sure Linda will join me.

Quilting seems to be consuming my life these days. I also got some bulb fertilizer and tulip bulbs. I have three good-sized pots that I'm going to put the bulbs in. The weather is beautiful right now; it's supposed to hit 82 on Wednesday.

I guess the quilting, I've been consumed by the "sturm und drang" of Creamy Silver's house purchase. I think her realtor should be horse whipped. That's all for now. Another wonderful week awaits me.

My Sewing Machine Is Home Again

And it works fabulously. The technician said it just needed some TLC which translates to cleaning and oiling, something we all need from time to time. I finished what I have to do for class tomorrow.

Today I actually didn't feel well for a while. First I was cold and then hot and then my stomach hurt. As soon as I found out my machine was ready, I was cured.

Kerry went with me because he is curious about sewing machines and where they fix them. I actually think that he could be a fabric artist. So no more prayers are needed, just kidding. The house is once again whole: a man, a woman, two cats and my sewing machine.

Class tomorrow is on quilt binding. We are making potholders as a way to learn. I can hardly wait. I pick up Linda at 5:30 p.m.

My Sewing Machine Is In The Hospital

Yes, it has to stay overnight. Here's what it looked like as I was preparing to put the case on so I could carry it to my car. The young man who looked it over said it could be fixed and I could pick it up Wednesday right before closing (7 p.m.). That means I still have another 24 hours until we will be reunited. Hopefully my manual will come by then so I can better understand the machine.

To compensate for my loss, I went to Joanns Fabrics, walked around and felt fabric. I did get the Insul-Bright for my binding class on Thursday. It's a type of batting that you use in pot holders, which is what we are making on Thursday evening when we perfect, or in my case learn, binding techniques. I got home and looked at the empty space on my sewing table and didn't quite know what to do. This should tell you just how hooked I am on this. It's not that I wanted to quilt this afternoon; with the machine gone I didn't have a choice, I couldn't.

So I took a short nap, wandered into my sewing room, discovered it had not magically re-appeared and then went back to bed to read a fiction book on quilting; the Elm Creek Quilt Camp series.

My quilting buddy Linda hasn't had much time for quilting because she's running the flu clinic at Kaiser in Lincoln. She's a retired R.N. and does this each year. The first day they had 500 but the second day they were swamped with 1,000.

I did buy a book of iron-on quilt labels so I think I'll spend tomorrow making some labels and coloring them so I'm ready to quilt again and finish a couple of quilts.

Wedding Vows And A Calliope

My good friend Susan's daughter, Jennifer, was married last Saturday at the Amador Harvest Inn which is deep in the heart of the Amador County/Gold Country wine growing region. Jennifer, as you can tell, was a lovely bride. She married a young man named Paul who has a son, Jacob, by his first marriage. You could just tell that this couple plus Jacob are marked for success. When the couple exchanged rings they also had one for Jacob. He was so pumped up to have his own ring (he's in second grade).

The sun was out, the weather was warm, not too much of a breeze and lots of happy people. The rose petals you see behind the groom, well, there is a story behind them. Susan was appalled by how expensive rose petals were. All the rest of the flowers were silk, but because of the wildlife in the area anything you had on the ground had to be biodegradable. Susan bought $30 worth of rose petals and then set out to find the rest on her own. Any rose bush that looked like the petals were about to drop became fair game for Susan. I told her I would have joined her; we could have hit all the cemeteries in the area. She looked at me, smiled and said, "You were always so resourceful."

The family who owns the inn also owns Deaver Winery, which is right next door, so we had great wine with dinner.

Before I get to the calliope, one very important serendipitous thing happened. Kerry and I noticed a bunch of older Porsches in the parking lot of the winery. Kerry went to talk with the Porsche owners and discovered that they are a car;the owners have the kind of old Porsche that he has. Great discussion ensued; we are going to their monthly breakfast at Marie Callender just before we leave for Palm Desert next month for a week. These guys assured him they would come to the house, help him get it started and basically get us on the road so we can ride around in a very hot red convertible. I can hardly wait. He could get rid of the rest of his vehicles and just keep this one and I would be very happy. A Prius and a bright red (and newly painted) 1962 Porsche 356 convertible.

Now for the calliope; we stayed in nearby Sutter Creek for the wedding afterparty (pizza). Sunday morning we went in search of breakfast. The Days Inn had no trace of protein in its free breakfast so that wasn't good for diabetic Kerry. As we were coming out of the breakfast place in Sutter Creek we heard the sounds of a merry-go-round. There was a glorious calliope (sans merry-go-round) across the street that was thumping out some great polka music. There were two calliopes and three organ grinders in the downtown area. As with everything, there is a club for calliope owners. The one pictured was built in 1895 in Germany and then came to the U.S. at the turn of the century. It was part of a merry-go-round for many years until this couple bought it.

We got home Sunday afternoon and headed out for game night at 6 p.m. Being popular can be exhausting.

Today I couldn't get my sewing machine to work so early tomorrow we are heading for the doctor. I did manage to find a manual for my machine on line. It was listed under sewing machine relics (sigh). Hopefully the doctor can fix it up tomorrow because I have a class on Thursday evening with my quilting buddy Linda. I'll keep you posted on the health of the machine.

The Mighty Acorn, Al Gore and The Flattened World

Our remaining oak is a blue oak and this is an acorn from that tree. They don't put out acorns every year but this year they are putting out a bumper crop. Sometimes it sounds like popcorn popping in the microwave. I've been hit on the head a few times and they definitely hurt. If everyone of them became an oak tree we would have thousands of trees. They are very slow growing because they are drought resistant.

Now we come to Al Gore and the flattened world; if you voted for Bush in 2004 and consider him a good president, you might want to stop reading right now. But come back another time. I rarely get political.

Al Gore's new book "The Assault on Reason" is a real page turner or in our case a CD inserter. We listened to it on our trip to Washington.

New York Times book reviewer Michiko Kakutani wrote in her review, "In 'The Assault on Reason' Al Gore excoriates George W. Bush, asserting that the president is 'out of touch with reality,' that his administration is so incompetent that it 'can't imagine its own way out of a horse show,' that it ignored 'clear warnings' about the terrorist threat before 9/11 and that it has made Americans less safe by 'stirring up a hornets' nest in Iraq, 'while using the language and politics of fear' to try to 'drive the public agenda without regard to the evidence, the facts or the public interest.'"

It is a truly scary book. Our constitution is being eroded on a daily basis by the Bush administration. Mr. Gore's central argument, according to the reviewer (I agree with her), is that "'reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way American now makes important decisions' and that the country's public discourse has become 'less focused and clear, less reasoned.'" This is the assault on reason.

Now for the next book, Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat, A Brief History of the 21st Century." He's a columnist for the New York Times. The reviewer in the New York Times for this book was Fareed Azkaria."The metaphor of a flat world, used by Friedman to describe the next phase of globalization, is ingenious. It came to him after hearing an Indian software executive explain how the world's economic playing field was being leveled. For a variety of reasons, what economists call 'barriers to entry' are being destroyed; today an individual or company anywhere can collaborate or compete globally." The first barrier was the fall of the Berlin wall. The book is a hard read so I highly recommend listening to it in small doses. One of the Friedman theories that I like best is that countries with McDonald's don't get involved in wars. It's shorthand for saying that countries who have a stake in the world economy don't want to mess it up by doing something stupid like going to war. Countries without McDonald's include Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just so you know that I'm now becoming some intellectually elite snob, my next book is a murder mystery by Elizabeth George and then a book by Jennifer Chiaverini, "The Christmas Quilt." See I'm not a snob afterall.

I Won Something; I Never Win Anything

Went to my first quilt guild meeting tonight and walked away with a Rowenta travel iron valued at $55. I bought $5 worth of raffle tickets and won. I almost left because my asthmas decided to rear its ugly head. I went over the the raffle table and asked the woman what would happen if I won but wasn't there. She asked why I had to leave. I told her I was having an asthma attack and didn't have my inhaler. "You use albuterol?" she asked. "Yup," I replied. "This is your lucky day, use mine," she said as she handed me her inhaler. That enabled me to stay until I'd won the iron. Now you have to love an organization where people will lend you their inhalers. I immediately went to the membership table and paid my $25 to join. I figured with the $5 plus the $25 I was already ahead plus I now know who else has an inhaler with them if I forget mine again.

There were 125 people at the meeting (two men, not to mention Hector who is a great quilter but is somewhat of a recluse so doesn't come to meetings). I got there 45 minutes early and was amazed to see a full parking lot at the church where they meet. Quilting is almost like a religion so why not meet at a church.

They have a section on the agenda called "show and tell." I was in awe of the quilts that people showed us. The speaker for the meeting was a woman known for her scrap quilts. That's code for someone who can't throw any scrap of fabric away and needs to do something with what she saves. The quilts she showed us were beautiful. She confessed that she never saves anything smaller than two square inches; but then her caveat was "unless it's a really interesting fabric."

I agreed to all kinds of things while I was there; people were so nice you just couldn't say no. I entered a contest with the theme of Mardi Gras on the farm. I got two fat quarters (that's another bit of quilting jargon; sort of reminds me of the French Quarter in New Orleans) and am supposed to make something out of them for display at the quilt show in February in Auburn. I have no idea what I will do. I also signed up to make a "Do Not Touch" mini quilt for the same quilt show. Everyone wants to touch the quilts so they hang these quilts between each quilt to discourage the fingering of fabric.

Also, as a member I have to make a name tag for myself by my third meeting or I have to pay 25 cents each meeting that I don't have one. I wish I'd had my camera so I could've taken pictures of all the name tags I saw tonight. I'm feeling creatively challenged and happy; very happy.

How many people in blog land think that I am hooked? Raise your hands, shout out "quilt block and walking foot" and than say amen. That's all from Lincoln, CA tonight.

This is a walking foot; a strange name for a sewing machine foot that allows you to stitch in the ditch. This is what happens with any new craft; you have to learn the lingo.

The walking foot moves the fabric forward in sync with the feed dogs (sigh); those are the teeth in the plate under the needle. You probably aren't interested in the translation anyway. You just want to know why I'm showing you this foot. Well, I've gotten to the quilting part of my quilt. Until you put the quilt top (the pretty part), the batting and the backing (any old cotton) together and start to sew on them you don't have a quilt. To me this is the challenging part. Some folks just turn their quilt top, batting and backing over to professional quilters, but I didn't want to do that without trying it first.

I did the easy part, stitch in the ditch. Basically you just follow along as close to the seam as you can get. You start from the middle and work out. And you use safety pins rather than straight pins to hold the whole thing together.

The fancy part is called "free motion quilting." And I'm terribly intimated by it. It's the art in arts and craft. My Thursday class taught this technique; I've been practicing, but I'm certainly not ready to a do this to my quilt top. I'm going to work through this but it's going to take a lot of practice on muslin (it's hard for me to not write "Muslim"). At the fabric store I asked for a yard of Muslim. I'm sure I wasn't the first to do that.

Despite the age of my sewing machine (born 1976) I have been able to find all the attachments I need to quilt. For a nanosecond on Thursday I thought I might have to buy a new machine; then I found the quilting/darning foot. Does anyone remember darning socks. I do. I wonder what happened to my mother's egg.

I finally feel like we are back to our usual life; I got on the treadmill today after a 12 day absence. That's when I knew things were back to normal. Plus we are having leftovers tonight: meatloaf and potato salad that was leftover from the Red Hat Ladies barbecue.

The only thing that is not normal is Kerry's health. He had a blood test prior to our trip, but we didn't get the results until mid-trip. His platelet count is 24,000; at 20,000 doctors worry about bleeding out. You are supposed to have upwards of 250,000 platelets. This is the lowest his count has ever been. He's now having his blood tested every four weeks. Scares me to death. Also, his glucose level was over the top so now he's taking insulin pills. I'm much more worried than he is; that's my job in this relationship. He may have to go through another chemotherapy treatment for the platelet disorder (ITP). Until we figure that out we are not venturing very far from home.

I'm going to my first quilt guild meeting tomorrow night. My quilting buddy, Linda, is out of town so I'm going alone to scout it out.

We Are Back

Before we went to Kerry's family in Burlington, WA, we stopped at Crater Lake in southern Oregon for a night. The lake was formed when a volcano imploded and collapsed into a huge crater that is 1,900 feet at its deepest point. Over time (like 7,000 years) it filled with rainwater and snow. Not outlets or inlets so the water is very pure. The average snowfall at the lake is 533 inches per year. It holds 5 trillion gallons of water. The color is amazing.

The second picture is the deck outside the Crater Lake Lodge. It overlooks the lake. On the far right in the background you can see Ranger Dave giving a history lesson on the lake. We couldn't get into the lodge but did get to have dinner there on the deck just as the full moon was rising between two crags. A bit chilly out there for dinner but definitely worth the cold to see the beauty of the place. You just had to eat your soup relatively fast. In the morning it was 34 degrees F.

On our way to Burlington, we met our friends Steve and Janet in Roseburg, Oregon for lunch at Applebees. They were coming down Interstate 5 after a couple of months in Alaska. Thanks to cell phones, we talked and found a place to meet. We hadn't seen them since early July when they left for Alaska.

Then we headed for Burlington where we had a great visit; Susan turned 60 as planned and it rained every day.

We headed south to Portland where we stopped at a quilt shop in Wilsonville, The Speckled Hen (http://www.speckledhen.com). It is in the list of Top Ten Quilt Shops put out by Better Homes and Gardens recently. Great place. I got a calendar that has a different quilt block pattern, including directions, for each day of the year. The calendar only has the date so you can use it year after year. I think 366 quilt block patterns will keep me busy for a while.

After Wilsonville, we headed for the Oregon coast to visit our friend and wonderful artist, Charlotte. She is having some health problems so continued down the coast to Bandon, rather than stay with her. In Bandon the weather finally cleared so we could see the beautiful southern Oregon scenery. We arrived home late Wednesday night after a marathon 11 hours of driving.

The cats were very glad to see us. I woke up Thursday morning to discover that the two of them were wedged in behind my knees. I moved a bit and they moved right along with me.

My quilting buddy, Linda, and I had another quilting class yesterday. This one was about free motion quilting, which allows you to use a regular sewing machine (with a special quilting foot) to quilt the quilt top. I'm going to spend this afternoon practicing on some muslin.

It is wonderful to be home. Tomorrow my Red Hat Ladies bring their spouses to our house for our annual fall barbecue. Hopefully it will be cool enough for a few rounds of croquet.

Tree Execution Day

This beautiful Blue Oak in the center of the photo is diseased and so must come down before it falls down. The arborist says it's at least 100 years old. It has a bacterial canker, which has invaded nearly all of the trunk. I hate to see trees cut down; I know this one has to come down but I'm still very sad. It's done a great job of shading people, producing acorns from which little oaks have grown, shedding leaves each fall which provide fertilizer for the earth and providing homes for birds, but now it's time is up. There is a big green bucket truck in our driveway. It's pulling a mulcher. Weapons of mass destruction. Kerry has found someone who will mill most of the wood so we can make something from it. Not sure how much wood we will get so what that something will be is undecided yet.

We still have one blue oak; it sits right in front of the house and is about 100 years old as well. The arborist thinks it's healthy but will be out next week to climb it and check out a few spots that worry him. This tree shades the entire front of the house.

Catching Up

It's been one of those weeks that has just had too much going on. This is the first day since Sunday that I didn't have to get up and go somewhere. I really like to get up early, but I don't like to go out before noon. I had physical therapy (shoulder is healing nicely), had my final quilt class with Sheila, went to Girls Nite Out at a local wine bar, actually facilitated a meeting for a client (only one more to go and then I'm done), got my hair cut and colored, had lunch with my good friend Jan (going through a divorce and starting her own business; I can relate to that), divided and replanted my bearded iris so they will bloom better, and tonight we are going wine tasting at our favorite Lincoln produce store (we are tasting zinfandels tonight; some call it the state grape).

Best of all this week, it rained. We got .75 inches on Wednesday night which is a great way to start our rainy season. It has not rained here since May 3rd. Blue skies and bright sun get old after a while.

My friend Jan that I mentioned above is someone who is very organized; she has worked for Apple and Palm, been a wedding planner and worked for a wedding magazine selling ads. She's decided to put that good experience to use with an on-line business that helps those planning special events like weddings, anniversaries and anything else. Check out her web site: http://www.allaboutoccasions.weddingstar.com/ She takes credit cards and PayPal. Who knows maybe you might need something she has.

My quilting buddy Linda and I are already signed up for two more quilting classes: free motion quilting and binding. I've also been doing a bit of hand quilting on the two quilts I have finished. I'm not going to quilt the one I finished in class until I take the quilting and binding classes.

So now you know where I've been. Next Wednesday we go to Kerry's family for a visit. His baby sister is turning 60. They live just south of Bellingham, WA. We are going to spend one night at Crater Lake on our way up; we will come down the Oregon coast to visit our friend Charlotte on the way back.

Nothing planned for this weekend...aah bliss.

Final Quilt Photo

I wasn't going to do it but decided that I just had to add the border because I wanted to see what it would look like. So here it is.

Next steps are to add the batting and backing, which won't show, quilt it or have someone do that for me who has a long-arm quilting machine and then bind the edges. Once it's done I'm going to hang it in my office. I really, really like quilting.

My Home Ec teacher, if she's still alive, would be dumbstruck. I was her worst sewing student, and I started a fire in our cooking class. I guess the past is not always a predictor of the future. Thank goodness.

Quilt Update

I finished all the rows and sewed on the sashing between each row and around the quilt. Starting from the top: friendship star, log cabin (the red square in the middle is supposed to represent the hearth), flying geese, nine patch, rail fence, and nine patch variation.

Next I have to add the border. That's what I've been doing today.

Google Cookbook

Did you know that you can type into Google three ingredients you have in your kitchen, and it will give you recipes you can make with those ingredients. Of all the high tech stuff around I think this is the best. I'm reading Thomas Friedman's book, "The World Is Flat." He mentioned this so this morning I gave it a try. I typed in venison (yes I have some but we didn't kill it), mushroom soup and carrots. I got back a whole bunch of recipes. I think I'm going to fix the slow cooked venison stew. So check out your kitchen, type in those three ingredients and hit enter. Who knows what you will discover.

Cats And Quilts

Top photo is Georgio playing with his favorite toy. The white ball cannot come out of the track so he spends a lot of time moving it around and then chasing after it. Pretty funny to watch. Nora likes to attack him while he's doing it. Sometimes he sits in the middle on the cardboard and bats the ball. When it hits him in the butt he jumps just like he was surprised something hit him.

The second photo is the quilt I'm working on for my new class. We are learning to make some of the basic quilt patterns. Top row is nine patch; next is rail fence; third is another nine patch; fourth is nine patch variation; and the last is friendship star. I need to make one more friendship star to complete the row.

Next Wednesday we will learn log cabin and flying geese. In the last class we will put it all together with sashing between each row and a border around it all. The strips are on a piece of flannel I bought. For some reason the fabric sticks to the flannel without benefit of tape or tacks. I learned this in the classroom at Cabin Fever Quilt Shoppe where all the walls are flannel. I've already signed up for two one-day classes that meet in October: quilting and quilt binding.

Another Shoe From Albuquerque

Since I retired, my shoe collection has gotten quite a bit less mainstream. Before I was always trying to camouflage my size 9EEs, but now I've decided what the heck I'm going to wear what I want. If anyone points to my feet it will be because they are jealous of my shoes. I got these Kitsons for far less than they want on the Kitson web site. I have not worn them yet because I'm still wearing sandals (the temperature is still hovering right about 100). My friend Beverly in Albuquerque also introduced me to mismatched socks. You buy three socks that are all different in design but the same in color hue. I thought about it and decided I can do that without buying the special socks. Now I have a chance to wear one flamingo sock with one turtle sock. So that's my story for today. Here's the web site for the socks: http://www.littlemissmatched.com
Have a great labor day.

Wine Tasting In Nevada County

Six of us adventurous souls set out to wine tasting yesterday in near 100-degree heat. Luckily all the wine production areas at the wineries need to be kept cold so it wasn't too bad. They were very different types of wineries. All represented vintners who want to produce Italian-type wines. They get their grape stock from UC Davis. Imported grape plants have to go through a ten-year process before they are sold. The U.S. doesn't want to import anyone elses diseases or bugs.

All of the wineries were only in their second year of production. It takes five years for a plant to produce harvestable wine grapes. The first years they just cut off the grapes as soon as they start to form. This allows the plant to put energy into growing it's root and stem systems. We liked the first one the best, Montoliva. We bought a sampler case and then two extra bottles of Pinot Grigio (a wonderful wine for hot summer days when served really cold). The wine making area is in the basement of his house in his family room. The rest of the wineries were in just about equally small areas. Some of them make so few cases each year that they were out of many of their wines. Most will be harvesting in the next week or so. The vineyard at the left is at Avantgardia. You are looking at the one-acre of grape production they have. We really didn't like the wines but the people were very nice. The husband and wife team do the picking, crushing and all the other parts of getting the wine into the bottle. Wine making at this level is for those who want to work hard.

Then we headed for Tal and Alicia's house to rest a bit before we headed out on their pontoon boat on Lake of the Pines for a dinner of wonderful pork ribs, salad and a dessert called treacle. Kerry really got into the gliding over the water at a nice slow speed that produced enough of a breeze to cool us off so we could drink more wine. The two ladies are Margo on the left and Alicia on the right. Margo was our realtor when we bought our house. She and husband Rick have been our friends ever since. She organizes our tours, Alicia fixed the wonderful dinner and architect Tal skippered the boat. Rick, former Coast Guard, handled the anchor and lines. You ask, what did you and Kerry do? Be very appreciative of everything. Kerry finished off my plate of ribs and salad. I didn't let him near my treacle.

Alicia makes her treacle with lemon curd (yummy), baked yellow cake that has been crumbled and bits of fresh fruit like strawberries and peaches. You stir all of that together and then put whipped cream on top. Delicious!!

We got home by 9:30; I was in bed sound asleep by ten and didn't get up until 9 this morning.

It's another hot day here so we are heading for the movies this afternoon. I think we will veg tomorrow.