January 2011 Archives

I have a friend named June who lives in Aberdeen Scotland. We have never met, but we have corresponded and shared gifts. She has overwhelmed me with her generosity in the past, with lovely gifts that show her Scottish heritage.

June and I share a passion for quilting. We've swapped fabric and pictures of our projects. She sent me two exquisitely done shadow quilted pillow shams. They are elegant and perfect for the guest room in my home. They took a lot of time to create, and I was bowled over when I opened the package and saw what she sent.

However, she has topped herself in gift giving! In November she sent me a quilt! I'd admired the pattern on one of the quilts she'd made for her daughter. I asked if she would make a quilt top for me. Now, you need to know that I'm not brazen enough to ask a friend to make a quilt top for me without intending to reimburse her. June was raising funds for a poly-house her daughter needed to extend their growing season. I thought buying a top that June had made so that she could donate to the fund was a win-win situation.

So, imagine my surprise when I opened this package and found a completed quilt. This is the very first time (I think) that I have ever received a quilt from someone. My mother made quilts for all the women in my family, but we ran out of time before she could make one for me.....so this quilt is very special to me.

Here's a picture (forgive my amateurish photography, please):

I LOVE the colors! I LOVE the prints that June used. She and I are as different as night and day in our choices of patterns and fabrics, and for that very reason, I treasure this quilt. I hope one day I'll get to meet June, and she can take me shopping for vibrant fabrics like the ones she has used in this quilt.

June.....thank you from the bottom of my heart!

How can it be that we are already at the close of January? I've been busy all month, as I am sure you have, and I'm satisfied with what I have accomplished, but there's a lot left to do. Scraps on a Mission is coming along nicely, and I've got the tax planners for our personal taxes, and Mother's final tax return. We plan to shop for carpeting for the hallway, and for the living room, which is long past needing to be replaced. We're ready to face February and see what our shortest month will bring.

I was talking with Dear Husband about the need to clean out the basement. Our basement is truly a disgrace. I don't trust my knees on the stairs, so I go downstairs very infrequently. I think I'm going to need to live in the basement during February, because so much needs to be done.

We need to destroy documents from our company dating back to 1986,and personal documents that we no longer need. I need to gather all my Mother's things into one section of the basement, so that my family will be able to see them, and decide what we will do with them. I need to store all the Christmas decorations in their bins, and throw away a collection of boxes that we probably no longer need. AND, I should go through a collection of ancient electronic stuff, to determine what needs to be given to the recycling center. All of February, right? Maybe I need to put up a bed down there, and add a hot plate and refrigerator! lol

I'm looking forward to Spring, and warmer weather, but not until this mess has been sorted out. I'll take my cell phone with me, in case anyone needs me. *G*

How can it be that we are already at the close of January? I've been busy all month, as I am sure you have, and I'm satisfied with what I have accomplished, but there's a lot left to do. Scraps on a Mission is coming along nicely, and I've got the tax planners for our personal taxes, and Mother's final tax return. We plan to shop for carpeting for the hallway, and for the living room, which is long past needing to be replaced. We're ready to face February and see what our shortest month will bring.

I was talking with Dear Husband about the need to clean out the basement. Our basement is truly a disgrace. I don't trust my knees on the stairs, so I go downstairs very infrequently. I think I'm going to need to live in the basement during February, because so much needs to be done.

We need to destroy documents from our company dating back to 1986. We need to destroy personal documents that we no longer need. I need to gather all my Mother's things into one section of the basement, so that my family will be able to see them, and decide what we will do with them. I need to store all the Christmas decorations in their bins, and throw away a collection of boxes that we probably no longer need. AND, I should go through a collection of ancient electronic stuff, to determine what needs to be given to the recycling center. All of February, right? Maybe I need to put up a bed down there, and add a hot plate and refrigerator! lol

I'm looking forward to Spring, and warmer weather, but not until this mess has been sorted out. I'll take my cell phone with me, in case anyone needs me. *G*

Could you PLEASE explain to me why someone in a third world country feels it's appropriate to spam my blog? It's not like I have a gazillion readers, and by now you'd think they would have figured out that most comments have to be approved, and I'm just dumping them in the trash.

Please, you turkeys, go find someplace else to roost!

(Now, watch, it will take me hours to clean out all the comments. Sheesh!)

Scraps on a Mission is the name of a group of ladies who are taking donated cotton fabrics and making quilts for those in need. It grew out of my friendship with a woman who is a member of the Empty Nester group at church, and is quietly taking over my life.

Two of my friends have donated hundreds of yards of fabric. They got to clear their stashes of fabric they were never going to use, and we got the basic material we need to make the quilts. I sorted through the fabrics and divided them up by color. I washed the very large pieces that will be used for backing, measured them, and stowed them away.

Today I spent a good part of the day cutting blue, gold and brown fabric into strips, the first step toward creating kits for inexperienced quilters to assemble. I have some more sub-cutting to do before I can bag the pieces. Many of the ladies who are working with us do not have any experience using a rotary cutter and mat, so I'm donating my time on this until I can teach them how to cut their own patchwork.

I believe that I have enough fabric sliced up to make at the very least six quilt tops! When I get a little further along in my preparations, I'll take pictures for the blog.

January is an organizing month. I started by clearing off the long table in my studio so that I'd have plenty of working space. Then, I moved the bin that I use to collect personal receipts and bills into the studio, and began sorting them. I was surprised at how comparatively little time it took me to get papers and reciepts and bills organized. I also found two portable CD players I had ordered!

Of course, the purpose for that organization is two-fold. I now have papers I need to be able to fill in a tax planner, and the bin has been cleaned out for this year's collection of "stuff."

Once the table had been cleared off, I was able to use the space for stacks of fabric. I have been using a Swedish shelving system for close to 20 years for my fabrics and quilting projects. Unfortunately, when I bought the system, I didn't buy enough shelves, so each time I want a piece of fabric, I have to lift fifteen pounds of fabric to get to it. On my Christmas wish list, I provided the information on where to find the shelves and my step-daugher bought me two. What a wonderful gift!

With Dear Husband's assistance, I got those two shelves in right away, and knew that I was going to have to add at least four more. That was the project this past weekend. Because of the weight of fabric on the units, and lack of space for all the fabric involved, it wasn't wise to empty off all the shelves that were to be moved at one time. I shifted the fabric for one third of it to start, moved their shelves and got the fabric settled into place before starting the center section of the job.

That section didn't go smoothly. I had to loosen rods on both the left and right units to be able to move the existing shelving. I dropped the allen wrenches behind the unit, as well as one of the screw-caps that holds a rod in place. I got a wooden shelf stuck at an improbable angle.

I walked away from it for the day.

When I returned to it the next day, things went better, and I had the good sense to call for DH's help when I got stuck again. He makes things seem so easy.

All the fabric is in place now, and I'm reassessing batting storage, to see if I can free up more shelves. I'm at the point now where I can't buy more fabric until I use more up in quilts! I wonder if that might be called "critical mass?"

So, my next project is to start scanning family pictures. We have a family member who is willing to work on collecting pictures to disk, so I need to scan what I have and e-mail it to him.

No doubt there will be more work coming my way, but it's wonderful to have accomplished two major projects that will smooth the way for things I need to do later this year. Yea, January!!!

I was cleaning the kitchen Sunday and discovered that "something" had taken bites out of a plum tomato on my kitchen counter! I had just two tomatoes and had put them in the fruit bowl to make more room on the counter.

I showed the tomato to Dear Husband, as evidence of at least one BRAZEN mouse in the house. I set the other tomato back in the bowl, and used bleach on the counter.

Monday......the top of the tomato was chewed away.

I need a cat.

It's time to practice 2011, 2011, 2011!

And it's time to leave the weeks of celebration behind and get back to our usual lives. Well, almost! lol

My quilting bee meets the first Friday of the month. That would be this coming Friday. I leave my Christmas decorations up until they have visited, and then everything comes down. I really enjoy the wreaths and swags and decorations. I love the red bows and strings of lights. I'm glad to have them for just a week more, especially since they didn't go up until mid-December.

Most of us are back to our regular schedules now. This morning I filled in for my exercise guru, and I'll get to do that again on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday's class will be smaller, as many of the class will be on a trip to see "The Mikado," in Chicago. Today, one of the class clowns, someone who must be nearing 80, turned the lights out while we were in the middle of a cardio exercise. I get that he doesn't want to be there, but I wish he would find less dangerous ways to express himself.

I'm working on several small quilts for our charity quilting group. I've found blocks from previous projects, "orphans," that have made a great basis for several small quilts. It's wonderful to find homes for these pieces and know that nothing is going to go to waste!

I'm going to make apple bread this afternoon, which will be the last of the tea bread for a while. I made five loaves of pumpkin/walnut bread, two loaves of banana nut bread, and I'll make two loaves of apple bread. Dear Husband has an early morning sweet tooth, and he takes a slice with him on his way to work. All the bread, with the exception of one banana-nut loaf is in the freezer. I won't have to bake for a while. DH will make these loaves last!

And.....bills. I have bills to pay today. I wonder how many times I will print 2010 rather than 2011??? Onward and upward!