Sister's Choice Quilts

It's Not My Eye, It's My Nose

Well.  For goodness sake.

I just got home from seeing the doctor, and the problem I have isn't with my eye, it is with my sinuses.  I have chronic troubles there, and those issues can affect other nearby areas within the face. 

He says I have polyps in my sinus cavities, and that is causing all my woes.  Did I mention that I have lost my sense of smell?  Very weird, and inconvenient.  Lots of eye watering, nose blowing, snoring, and congestion.  And I have let it go on way too long.  Until my eye swelled shut, good grief.  Why are sinus issues so easy to ignore?  I am scheduled for a CT scan next week, and will probably have minor surgery to get myself fixed up.

So, that's the answer believe it or not!

On a more cheery note, I have resigned from one of my part time jobs (the fun one that didn't pay so well).  My remaining job will occupy me for about 24 hours a week, and guess what I will be doing with my extra free time? 

You guessed it!  It involves fabric....

How Do You Store Your Projects and Fabric?

Thanks so much for your good wishes in regard to my eye issues.  I think I am getting better.  The eye is better, but the swelling has moved down my face so now I look like a big red pumpkin.  Lovely.

Beverly in WA had a question for me.  She asked if the plastic storage box shown in my recent post on the Toulouse project was my typical method for keeping track of works in progress.  It got me thinking of all the different storage containers I use in various stages of my fabric acquisition and turning those fabrics into actual quilts.

I love to buy fabric bundles and collections of fat quarters, and like to have them front and center in my stash closet where I can pass by and fondle them and dream of their future transformation into quilts.  So, this is their first landing spot.  The stash closet in my sewing room.

Once I decide to make a specific pattern into a quilt, I store the cut pieces and pattern in a Rubbermaid box.  I have dozens of these boxes.  They are a nice size that stacks and fits well on my shelves.   (Note: the fuzzy thing on the shelf above is not one of my dogs.  It is a lambswool duster that ended up there somehow.  I really need to find a better spot for it).

 

Sometimes I get an idea that I want to make a certain pattern with a specific fabric line, and I may put the "ingredients" into one of these boxes before doing any of the cutting.  The box labeled "Mojo-Four Seasons" is full of a fabric collection called Four Seasons that I want to make into Miss Rosie's pattern called Mojo.   I'll get to it one of these days.  So, those boxes are my real work horses.  You can get them at hardware stores, drug stores and places like WalMart.  If on sale, they are pretty cheap too--around $4.00.

Sometimes I start collecting fabrics for a specific project and need a box bigger than the ones shown above, in which to store them.  My Morris fabrics, for example, need a good size box to live in while I figure out what on earth to do with them.  (We should talk about that in another post.  Is anyone else having an issue deciding how to use those prints?)  Anyway, here are my black and whites.

 

Finally, the place my random fabric buys and leftover fatquarters and scraps end up is here.  In the garage.  Where I have two, make that three, metal shelving units loaded with two different sizes of plastic tubs.  Got those at CostCo for $70 each.  The shelving units, that is.

 

You get the idea.  Yes I know.  I have a lot of fabric.  But, hey, at least it's all paid for.  I know a woman who has $7000 racked up on a credit card, and it is all for fabric that she is paying for in installments.  And, I know another woman who had to rent a storage unit to store all her fabric off site so her family didn't commit her to a mental institution.  Oh, oh, and the poor thing that keeps all her stash in the bathtub in her spare bathroom?  Pathetic.  I'm not that far gone.   This was going to be a post on fabric and project storing methods, I truly didn't mean to go there.

So, how do you dear friends keep your fabric organized?  Better yet, do you know any scandalous stories of fabric hoarders who need intervention?  Tell. Tell.

 

I'll Take Some Comfort There

What a day.  Skip this post if you don't want to hear about my poor pitiful self.

Back to Urgent Care.  One Eyed Nick, that's me.  I woke up Tuesday morning with an eye that wasn't pretty.  An eye that was certainly NOT better.  Well, they said to come back if it wasn't better so I did.  Turned up on their doorstep whimpering "Help".  (I felt very puny and pitiful).

The doctor I saw was all over me in a hot second.  He did all sorts of new tests, and by golly, he wasn't sure if it was an eye infection or an eye allergy.  Three opinions, nobody knows.  So, they are treating it as if it is both.  I was there for hours, and had to have an IV of antibiotics and prednisone.  If I am not significantly improved by tomorrow, I am to come back.  And I am to come back on Friday regardless.  Finally someone who paid attention to me.  And I left with prescriptions for more antibiotics and steroids that Blue Shield actually covered.  Nice Dr. Durlocker, sounds like Door Knocker.

My next step after Urgent Care was to go to my dentist to get my new crown put on.  Why not just make a day of torturing Nicole?  I figured Dr. Wong wouldn't be too scared when he saw me, but he flipped out.  FLIPPED OUT.  Mild mannered Larry Wong, was certain this swelling/infection whatever was due to what he had done a week ago to my back molar.  He tsked and tsked the entire time he was gluing my crown on, and when I got home I had a message from him on my answering machine urging me to go right back to Urgent Care and get x-rays.  He knew it must be his fault.

I feel so pampered and loved.

And you know what I am thinking may have been the cause of this huge swelling/itching/redness that is making me a one eyed freak?  Remember how Sophie got out on Sunday?  And was running around up in the hills for an hour and half?  What if she ran through some poison oak or some other plant I am allergic to?  I pet her and rub her constantly.  I sleep with her for Heaven's sake.  What if I got the plant cooties on my hands and touched my eye--thus the allergic reaction?

I may never know what caused this, but you know what?  I love my girl and she loves me.

Maybe something Quilty tomorrow Friends.  If I can see out of both eyes!

76 Geese A'Laying

I lied yesterday when I said I had a hundred flying geese to make.  More like 76, it turns out.  And they are big devils, 3 1/2 inches by 6 1/2 inches.  I have all my units cut out and organized and ready to go.

I know I should get going on them, and sew into the night, as some of my friends are able to do.  The thing is, I am a morning person.  Well, more of a Middle Of The Day Person.  I like to get going on things around 9:30 AM and knock off for the day around 5:30.  Getting up too early isn't an option I prefer, and sewing late into the evening just isn't happening. 

Minor rant below.  If rants annoy you, do not read any further.

Besides, you will never guess what has happened to me.  I woke up Friday morning with my left eye swollen shut.  Itchy????  Oh, man.  It was complete torture not to rub my eye.  I thought, "This will go away".  But Saturday and Sunday morning when I woke up it was even more swollen and itchier.  (Is itchier a word?)  So, I took myself to Urgent Care to see what was up.  Evidently I am a medical mystery.  Nothing like this has ever been seen before, except when my nearly twin sister Andrea went to the doctor with exactly the same symptoms two months ago. 

The doctor saw me.  She was perplexed.  She called in her colleague.  Who was also perplexed.  You see, my eye didn't hurt, which would be a clear symptom of infection.  It was just super swollen and itchy.  Sign of some kind of allergic reaction.  To be on the safe side, she prescribed antihistamine eye drops and an antibiotic.  It could have been an infection, they just weren't sure.  And an eye infection is very serious business.  Went to the pharmacy.  Got the eye drops.  Didn't get the antibiotic.  Why?  Well, because the doctor prescribed a dose that was higher than typical for the use of the medication.  Insurance lackeys got involved.  Would not approve the prescription.  Here I am, with an eye that could be infected, millimeters away from my brain, and I can't get my medicine because the insurance drones are second guessing the dose my doctor prescribed for my unique symptoms.

I tell you, this has been so frustrating.  Something called a Prior Authorization has to be put through by the doctor, subject to approval by the person supervising the insurance drones.  How long will this take?  Dunno.  Nobody seems to care.

So, here I am, Miss Reliable, who goes to work when any sane person would stay home.  Trying to drive looking through one good eye and one eye that is just open the tiniest little slit.  I have one of those jobs (Office Manager) where I have to be there rain or shine, sick or healthy.  If I try to call in sick?  Major panic.  "Who will do..."  "What if....?"  And this time, when I tried to stay home, my boss actually said grudgingly, "Well, Nicole, you are going to have to really hit it when you get back to the office, in order to get caught up".  Talk about a guilt trip.

Rant over.

I wish I could stay home.  I want to make flying geese with my special Fit To Be Geese ruler by Monique at Open Gate Quilts.  The best, most accurate method ever.  Perfect geese every time.

My Pond is Polluted

You have seen it in previous posts.  This is my Goose in the Pond block that is featured in the Miss Rosie quilt called "Toulouse" that I am working on along with Lisa and Thelma.  I only had to make nine of them for the quilt top.  Very simple components--you just can't go wrong.  Except if you doze off for a bit, as I must have done.

What is that the middle of my pond?  How the heck did that happen?  Don't worry, I fixed it, but Jiminy Crickets, you would think I would have noticed that humongous mistake before I started to assemble the blocks and lattices.

This quilt has the most ingenious lattices I ever did see.  The center stripe of green is not just one fabric, but 15 different ones pieced together, then sandwiched between two white lattice strips.  I love it.  I bet Lisa and Thelma's will show up even more since they are using some aquas in there along with the greens.

If I had it to do over again, I am not sure I would have done scrappy white tone on tones for the block backgrounds.  It is pretty subtle,  don't you think?  Maybe I could have used a single white tone on tone and been done with it.  On the other hand, maybe upon closer inspection, the quilt will be more interesting for all the differences in the fabrics, no matter how slight.

On Saturday I managed to get the center of the top done, and now just have about a hundred flying geese to make for the border.

 

Sorry my pictures are so light and fuzzy.  It is a very gloomy day here and late in the afternoon as I write this.  Trust me, the colors in the quilt are very sharp.
 

Snowball Challenge Met!

My Red and White Snowball quilt is finished!  This was such a fun challenge, from start to finish.  What made it the best experience was having all you quilting friends sew along with Allyson, Thelma and me!  This quilt is a real winner and will be a current favorite of mine.   Kudos to Allyson for getting us going on working together and organizing the scrap exchange.

I added an inner containment border of black and an outer border in a red print that had light and dark shades of red, which coordinated with the variety of red scraps I used.  My outer border looks a tad wavy to me darn it, but with luck it will quilt out.

Wouldn't this be a great look for a red and white bedroom?  You could have a couple of red quilts that all went with one another, some white ironstone candle sticks, a vase of red flowers.....Hmmm, I may have to redecorate again! 

 

Dog Missing

Last night Sophie went missing.  I won't say she was lost, because she knew precisely where she was.  It had been pouring rain and hail all day long and she really needed to get out for a minute now that the rain had let up.  My son was packing his truck for the trip back to college and had left the side gate open.  Not realizing this, I let Sophie out the back door into the yard.    It was dark.  She slipped past Ahren out the open gate and away she went. 

I realized she was gone within five minutes, but it was too late.  She was out there somewhere in the night and could be in real danger if we didn't find her.  Her typical pattern, if she manages to escape the house is to meander down the usual route I take when we go for a walk.  Then, when we get to the end of the street, she heads for the hills up a walking path.  The last time she did this it was daylight, and I could see her way up the hill dashing around delightedly, diving into bushes to scare out all the birds nesting there.  She finally came to me, thank goodness.

Finding her in the daytime is one thing, finding her in pitch blackness was another.  Besides, we weren't even sure if she had headed up into the hills.  Ahren got in his truck and drove around the neighborhood, a container of treats at his side.  I walked up and down the sidewalk calling "Sophie!  Sophie!!  We searched like this for an hour, the skies overhead threatening to let loose another downpour such as we had had all day long.

By 9:00, I decided to go back home and sit by the phone in case someone found her and called me.  She was wearing her tags, so that was good.  I sat in silence imagining her hit by a car, kidnapped by gang members and being bait for pit bulls, or worse.  And then there is the coyote issue.  I hear those animals howling at night up in the hills.  If she had ventured way out there into coyote territory it could be all over.  My boss just lost her cat to coyotes last week.

At 9:30 I phoned Ahren and told him to come back home.  He had been out searching for her for going on two hours.  If she was going to come home when she got wet and hungry she would.  If a neighbor was out walking their dog before bedtime, there was a good chance she might join up with them and be rescued.

About ten minutes later I heard Ahren come in the door.  "Mom!  Mom!  Guess who I found!!"  She was soaking wet, muddy from head to toe, but home.

She had gone up into the hills all right, and Ahren had hiked nearly a half mile before she barked in response to him calling her name.  He ended up giving her nearly the entire container of treats he was so relieved to have found her.  And guess what?  When I took her collar off to put her in the tub to wash off the mud, her identification tag was missing.

If she had been picked up there is no way anyone would know where she lived or who to call.  Two lessons learned here last night.  The first one is obvious--make sure the dog can't escape the yard.  The second?  Check your dog's collar often to be sure the ID tags are still on!

Typepad issues today.  I have a help ticket going--hope to be back up and running soon!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

We are having a super rainy day here in the Monterey, CA area.  In fact, I was supposed to work at Talbots this afternoon, but got a call from my boss that the Plaza where the shop is located had lost power, and so there would be no work today as all businesses were closed.  As soon as I put the phone down and did my happy dance, I immediately logged on too The Pioneer Woman website to see what she had been cooking for dinner.  Italian Meatball Soup.  Now, that is just the perfect sounding recipe for a day such as the one we are having.  So I decided to make it too.

I stopped at the market on the way home from my morning job and assembled the ingredients on my kitchen counter.  It took no time at all to mix the meatball ingredients together.  Pioneer Woman doesn't like meat under her fingernails, so she uses a spoon for mixing.  A little meat here and there doesn't trouble me, so I used my hands.  It was pretty cold on the fingers, but with a bit of hot water afterward, it all comes off.

So, here are my meatballs, waiting to be browned.  Can you see the flecks of Parmesan and parsley?  Yum.

Have any of you watched the Food Network show called Worst Cooks in America?  My husband refuses to watch it, but Ahren and I are drawn to it like those who can't avert their eyes from a train wreck.  The show's premise is that Chefs Anne Burrell and Beau MacMillan will take a group of dismal cooks and turn them into cooking dynamos.  How is it working?  Oh dear.  These poor sad sacks don't have a clue.  One guy chopped garlic for his dish and included all the garlic papery skins in the broth.  Yummo.  Wouldn't you think that would be intuitive not to do that?  Like a basic first question in cooking is "is it edible?".   None of these characters seems able to follow written or verbal directions.  And their awareness of basic kitchen hygiene is negligible.  One gal had to be told maybe five times that she needs to wash her hands after handling raw poultry...You think she could get that through her head?  Despite repeated ridicule and humiliation?  Nope.  Dream on. 

A key tenant of cooking is reading a recipe through from start to finish before plunging in.  So basic.  The guy who got halfway through his dish and got to the part where it said "add the roasted and peeled red peppers"?  Oh yeah.  What  a DUH moment.  Roasted and peeled red peppers?  When was that supposed to happen?  It is so fun to shout at the contenders while they cook.  "You forgot to salt the pasta water Dumb A--!"

I'd show you a picture of my finished soup, but I forgot to take a picture.    Check out Pioneer Woman, she explains it all way better than I do!  It was a perfect dish for a cold rainy night and kinda fun to make too. Trust me, it was better than the Worst Cooks could do.

Look What Was Hiding In My Sewing Room

I took the lid off this project box, which I had neglected to label.  My jaw dropped and I must have looked down at the contents for a good 30 seconds.  How could I have forgotten about this?

25 blocks, in three variations.  All colored black, white, and raspberry.  I tell you, this must be what it feels like to be losing your memory.  I did remember making the blocks, and it was with surprise and fascination that I pulled out the pattern, called Samurai Squares.  Why had I put the project away?  Dunno. But here it is, saying "Hello!"

Maybe I was on some sort of cleaning rampage and felt I needed to clear the clutter in the sewing room.  I cleared the clutter all right, but I should have left myself a note to go back and revisit this project! 

There is just too much going on in my life.  Two jobs, two dogs, a big house to keep up, books to read, recipes to try, and a gazillion sewing projects I want to work on.  I think it is time to retire so I can stay home and focus on the dogs, the house, the books, the recipes and the sewing.  Something's gotta go and I think it should be the jobs, don't you?  My friend Lisa keeps a spread sheet with all her unfinished projects listed.  She also lists the fabric collections she buys and the patterns she has in mind for them.  That's it, I just need to be more organized.  Um, maybe I'll get a notebook or something.

Look at this wonderful collection of black and white prints!  Tone on tones, toiles, polka dots... all there.

 

I tell you, this is coming together this weekend or I will eat the plastic project box.

This reminds me of a recurring dream/nightmare I have.  I dream that I have a baby, but have sort of forgotten about it.  It is a good baby and stays in its crib and doesn't cry.  When I finally remember, "Oh, yeah, the BABY!!!" it hasn't had it's diaper changed for three months.  Or a variation of that dream--my daughter Sara is 8 years old, and I just realized I haven't bought her any clothes since she was 3.  Forgetting my quilting projects mid-way through?  Same principle.  Bad Nicole.  How COULD you forget about this wonderful project and let it languish away in a dark closet for a year?

Look what else was at the bottom of the box!  Black and white blocks for a baby quilt I want to make someday.  I don't need to buy any more fabric ever in my life.  I could shop at home Friends, and stay busy forever.