Keilo .. The Latest Addition

Perhaps this is why I can't seem to get anything done .. we have a new addition to the family in the form of a bullmastiff named Keilo .. she came to us as a replacement for our 23 month old female Kona who passed in May 2007 of heart failure .. Keilo was 14 lbs on Sept. 23 (we got her on the 19th) and on October 12 I took this second picture .. I had her weighed today and she is 19.2 lbs ..

Can you hear better like this???

Ode To *Mildred (Spirits Of The Cloth)

Bear in mind that this is only the opinions of two crazy quilters ... this is not the opinion of the general populus of quilters, crazy or sane ...

We are nearly finished with the color study RR and I for one will be glad to see it end ... I tire of the same color and will scream if I see any more purple .. another CQer *Mildred (name has been changed to protect the guilty) who had also participated in a color study that was not necessarily the same one I was in, said if I see one more **** (color) bead or ribbon or floss I will run stark naked down the street .... I told *Mildred that if I signed up for another color study to shoot me with knitting needles ... size 10 ... US .... circulars if possible as I'm more used to them ... she told me that if she ever signs up for another RR she hopes someone puts her out of her misery ... she said she would shoot me with the needles and made me promise to do a lobotomy with a crochet hook on her should she fail herself .... the pact was made even though *Mildred and I have never met .... ahh but *Mildred and I are now kindred spirits ... spirits of the cloth ....

I stuck to my word, no more color study but I signed up for another RR, this one is "anything goes" ... any theme .. no particular color ... *Mildred asked me to research "lobotomy with crochet hook" in the meantime ... I guess she figures she may need the surgery although she said she "might" do a swap ...

Here's to my friend *Mildred and all of the other CQers who are in the same boat. The original part is in bold, I "embellished" the rest ...

Prefrontal lobotomy
pre-fron-tal lo-bot-o-my (plural pre-fron-tal lo-bot-o-mies) In case you want more than one or if the first doesn't take and you need it redone. Noun.

Definition: surgical cutting of brain nerves: Prefrontal lobotomy was formerly a method of reducing severe emotional disturbances, mostly seen among crazy quilters but the operation had serious side effects. Quilters still insisted on joining too many RR's in spite of treatment .... indulging in one color study too many until they are seeing the same color cloth and threads on everything and everyone .... sleepwalking towards one's sewing machine but not arriving because of falling headfirst into a Rubbermaid container of silk, satin and velvets ... husband goes to look for shirts and they are in a pile in the sewing room because they look like nice quilt fabric ... he wonders where the buttons have gone ... sees them in a jar on the shelf like a scientist's lab and utters "my wife has gone mad" shaking his head as he looks for something to wear that won't make him look like Don Johnson or "Magnum P.I." .. not that there is any fear of that!!

Some have been seen going into stores and asking the price of a Vera Wang gown because it would make a simply lovely lap quilt .... either they have just simply given that no thought or they enjoy watching a clerk faint to the ground .. some very serious cases have even found themselves entering the most exclusive of dress shops and taking a heavily beaded gown that they can barely lift, into the fitting room .. not bothering to look at the size .... the clerk comes in after 15 mins to ask if you need anything or any help getting into the gown (they obviously noticed that the gown was a 2 and the customer was not) .... the quilter is fondling the gown which is draping onto the floor ... with a glazed over look in her eyes while sitting on the provided stool and says to the young clerk, "some snips please" .... clerk runs screaming to find a supervisor ... husband is called about his unruly wife .. when he arrives at the shop he says "oh it's beads. She's a crazy quilter" .... "yes" said the supervisor. "She certainly is" ... crazy quilter is led from the exclusive shop by one embarassed husband as she chants "I only asked for snips" while glaring madly at the supervisor .. clerk is still sniffing smelling salts ... quilter hisses "you will NEVER make a crazy quilter!!"

Some quilters swear off RR's but in the heat of the moment they consider the alternative .. a swap .. oh yes ... a swap would be nice and so easy .... one or two other people in the group ... doing what we want ... oh that sounds so inviting .. during sleep one such quilter sat up and blurted out "OH YESS!! I'd LOVE to do a swap! Oh thank you for asking me!" ... the bad thing about this is, that husbands do not think of "swap" in the same way .. suddenly there is a man coming to life like he's just been poked by Madonna's bra and doing a dance on the bed saying "YEAH BABY! Got anyone in mind?" ... quilter says "you'll put your back out you idiot, it's a quilting term" .... husband mutters something under his breath that was the farthest thing from a quilting term, attempts to get comfortable, his dreams of swaps shattered ..

Ladies. There are plusses to doing RR's .... really ... it's a learning experience .... I for one know only four stitches ... I learn slowly .... I sew even slower ... it's fun to see everyone's blocks, how they are put together, what seam treatments they use, what their forte is ... one may do wonderful spiderwebs while another is a whiz with Colonial knots ... neither of which I can do but I love beads and ribbonwork ... I am fearful of spiderwebs and bugs but I love the little knots and florally stuff .... everyone has something to offer.

But please. Do forgive *Mildred and I if we decline an invite to join another color study / RR ... we will be busy ensuring that neither of us need a meeting with the knitting needles and crochet hook.

Testifyin' .... Is Anyone With Me?

Today I decided to sort my fabrics .. I have three trunks in my studio, two in the hallway and one in my spare room where my daughter's computer is .. that one houses batting and large pieces of fabric .. one small one in the hall has nothing but trims .. the others are .. umm .. full of .. well, how do I say it ... downright ugly fabric .. granted I do have a lot of lovely fabric, but I've acquired those recently ... with experience ... they are in view on my desk but I need to make room in a trunk for them if I ever intend to proceed with actually making something ..... when I purchased my trunks I did not realize, until my DH pointed out to me that there are FOOT PRINTS on top of my trunk .... barefoot elves in London Drugs??

I'm a new CQer ... very new .. actually too new to have a large stash .. but I have one .. actually not one, but three trunks full ... I was getting a couple of squishies ready to send to Linda and thought I would need a trip to the cloth house to get her some fabrics ... then I started .. counting ... fabrics ... Dupioni .. raw silk ... cotton ... poly blends .. wools (so many wools .. for my P.I. quilt .. you know the kind of wool I mean "why are you wearing grandpa's seat covers dad?") and realized that if I sewed all this into blocks I would have enough material to make 70 baby quilts ... how humiliating ... how totally embarassing .. I've never even made a baby quilt ... I don't even have a baby .... and at 50, I don't see that happening .... thankfully. Tho MIL feels that we aren't too old to have one ... she has obviously forgotten how many years ago DH was born ..

"They" say that your first block will have no place on a quilt you make six months from now .. I feel the same way about fabrics .. I would not re purchase any of these fabrics now ... and who, are "they"???

My question is ... has it happened to you? And ... if it has, would you admit it??

You take an interest in CQ, quilting, bagmaking, knitting or whatever your fancy. Join a list ... maybe you join two .... meet other likeminded souls of the same nature .. and a lovely bunch they are ... they don't mind your anal questions and your silly photos of your muslin blocks/gauge swatches/seriously lopsided quilts ... it's a learning experience .. they have been there .. they are all encouraging and say nothing about your fabric selection or your methods of quilting ... life is good on the lists ...

You purchase fabric in 4" increments for CQ so you can have more variety which really works out to not having enough length to cover your wide spots which means you will have to piece maybe 3 different fabrics ... ahh but it's not the end of the world ... we press on.

You have not yet made anything .. but you are pondering .. planning ... eyeballing photos on the lists of those who have done far greater things .. by hand ... Leslie, Jo, Hideko, Kerry ... etc.

Finally you decide today is the day you are going to make a block ... THE DAY HAS COME ..

Kerry offers to help .. gives you a tut by email complete with pictures. Visuals are great ... Kerry is great .. her block is great ... yours is ... well .. it's a block .... who said it had to be pretty?

You reach for fabric and realize that what you have is so ugly you shudder .... good thing it's not an RR block because then "it will be going to someone. No one will want to work on this fabric".
But it's your first block and only a sample and you're doing it with Kerry and she is so encouraging ... "she is looking at technique" you tell yourself ... so you press on and use some of the ugly fabric. Oh man, this is really bad .. you don sunglasses to eliminate some of the glare ... yellow? why did I buy yellow? And stripes? You don't even LIKE stripes .....

And the block was completed in about four days .... well, the corner was not.

Today, I decide to go through my fabrics as I want to do something larger , perhaps a throw for hubby, maybe get a start on my P.I. block .... Ahh, I can see visions of a nekkid block involving Thomas Magnum, Matt Houston and The Chief .... well, umm .... maybe NOT The Chief ... The Chief is in a league of his own with Perry Mason .... and that league does not involve anything nekkid .. sorry about that, Chief .. sorry Perry. :o/ Matt and Thomas ... yeah, we can work with them. Nekkid or not ... hmmmm ... moving on

I open trunk #1 .... remove a handful of fabric and say "man .. what was I thinking when I bought these?" .. a voice from the hallway says "umm .. you weren't. CLEARLY" ... agghh .. 18 year old girls .. what do they know about fabric ... unless it comes by way of a skimpy top or a pair of half inch zippered Dorinha's that barely cover their bits.

Kyro appears at door of studio with his usual exuberance .. and resembling a hairy red Darth Vader.

He barks .. then starts talking ... if you have heard a Bullmastiff talk you will realize it is accompanied by a lot of roo rooing and the more he talks, the more he drools ... pass the towel ...

I realize he is barking at a piece of multicolored brown that is lying in a small heap on the floor. It looks like iridescent .. umm ... I will not expand .. dog owners will identify.

The sight of the ugly fabric is obviously far too much for him.

He retreated to the hall where I could not see him smoking ... looks out to make sure that dad isn't coming ... dad hates smoke.

I open trunk #2 ... Kyro returns .. he sees ... I find it's worse than the first ... I look at him .. he looks away ...

Alanna was right ... these are OLD LADY fabrics ... oh I know. Maybe I was planning on doing some of this when I became an old lady ... could that be NOW? I don't think so .. I still have my mind ... or do I? What person in their right mind would buy such fabric????

And you wonder why we smoke???

Open small trunk #3 and take some out ... Keeva pokes her nose onto the desk and spies the fabric.

She refuses to take ANY at first ....

Then runs off with a piece of pink .. leaves it near the toy box, soggy and dead .... Kyro returns to it and picks up the remains.

I attempt to get it from Kyro's cloth stuffed face .. "good puppy" .. thank you for ruining that but please don't eat it ..... I recall when my old bull terrier Talulah ate half a tray of Alanna's neon colored beads .... I had the most colorful front yard in all of St. John's. :)

Here Keeva and Kyro, have a bunch of ugly fabric .... Make a mess. Get them all soggy. Good job.

I look at my fabrics on my desk that I've purchased at the wonderful East Indian cloth houses in the last couple of weeks .... there are many .. they are lovely ... I revel in it's divinity .... Linda will love these .. no Linda, I sent you nothing soggy.

This weekend .... a visit to the cloth house.

Replenishing is good for the soul ... anyone coming with me?