Three

It has been three days since my last confes...uhm...blog post. I don't remember the last time I went three days without a post. The inside of my elbow is itching for the strong personal uplift I get when I commune with my family of like interests.

For this years gardening project, I bought three pink roses to plant in the yard. I love growing roses. They like sun and manure and love and they give so much back.

I finished three projects.

First finish was the baby quilt, which I hope to deliver tomorrow. It wish that the mother should stay away from spicy foods and bumpy roads for at least that long. Unfortunately, she's an elementary school teacher and I don't think there's much chance of staying away from a long and bumpy road, filled with clumsy 4th graders.



Finishing the quilt means that I finished the pattern and have sent it to the people that I can remember asking for it (six people, which is two times three). Unfortunately, I was writing your names on the back of an envelope (because we all know how rare and valuable scrap paper is???) and I must have paid that bill because the envelope was nowhere to be found. There was a requester named Sammie who sent me a comment with a noreply email address. Sammie, has a 39 ft sail boat and that's why she was interested in the pattern. I'd love to send it to you, but need another email from you. Anybody else that wants one, just shoot an email address and if you sent one before and I still didn't send you a copy, I am sooo sorry. My only excuse is that I'm a much more organized quilter than a computer operator...unfortunately, I'm not that organized of a quilter, either. Shoot me another email and I will shoot you a pattern.

This is the finished block 1 of the Simply Delicious quilt. What I have observed is that the blocks get more complex as I proceed. So, the second block is apples and where the pear block has 25 pieces to applique, the apple block has 35. But, I started piece 18 this morning, so I'm half way there.



The instructions are clear and the work is easy for the most part. The pattern doesn't give good instructions for the 1" squares in the border. They suggest using 60 individual squares to build that, but I cut strips from the fat quarters and made one big strip set that I can subcut and use to border at least 5 blocks. That saves a bunch of effort. And, because the blocks are made in order of complexity, beginning with the pears and ending with the grapes (I'm afraid to check how many pieces there are to that block) my blocks with the same borders won't be next to one another, so no one will ever know I took the short cut.

And, I finished my February Linus quilt on Sunday morning with no more of February to spare. Here it is all bound and washed and ready to go. Now, it's time to start cutting the March quilt.



I also made a pair of boxers over the weekend, but don't really see myself posting pictures of my plaid underwear on the internet, so you'll just have to take my word that they look "mahvahluss". The pattern promised that I could make them in an hour and I suppose that if I was willing to have exposed cut fabric edges raveling and leaving threads in my most intimate spots, I could have indeed made them in an hour. But, higher quality took more time and I finished in about two hours. Still good time and a good use of a 5/8 yard piece of wonderful plaid fabric.

And, finally, work is hard right now and for the short term, my job is to review the work of others and find errors. There are two things wrong with this. First, the "others" didn't review their work before we started sending it to customers, so I have found more wrong than right. Second, "others" get very defensive when you find fault with their work and will find a dozen reasons why I'm the one that's wrong and not them. This has been a very negative experience and I walk around in a funk most of the time. My supplies of positive energy are pretty much exhausted and the only peace I get is away from here. But, things have been so busy that I can't get away from here. I worked so hard that I made myself slightly ill and had to take a day off. That didn't do anything for my workload and caused me to miss a deadline, which excited the "others" to no end and gave them plenty to talk about...especially to my boss. I think I hate these "others" and would gladly feed them, one by one, to alligators. Ahh, just that vision fills me with peaceful thoughts.

And, Rob has the flu. I don't have the flu. Guess which one of us remembered to get our flu shot this year. Now, I just have to keep him away from Sydney because she also didn't get a flu shot either. So, instead of hugging goodnight, they are allowed to touch elbows. That's as close as they are allowed to get. And, if I had it my way, they'd just wave at one another from opposite ends of the house on the way to bed.

That's it for me. Busy as ever. Tireder than usual. I need a week off. Soon as this crappy project is finished, I'm taking a long vacation. Somewhere with a masseuse, maybe?

Lane