In the ditch

Unless you're a new follower, you know I'm not fond of ditch work, but it's a requirement for me to quilt on a domestic machine.  It breaks the quilt into working zones that I can focus on for the free motion quilting that I love.  The ditch work on the double wedding ring quilt will go around every piece of fabric...and those arcs have a lot of little pieces of fabric.  It's very precise work and therefore very slow.   It takes about 45 minutes to get warmed up.  That's when I get relaxed enough that I can drop my shoulders back where they belong and lean back and just go with it.  

I have theories about the precision of ditchwork.  Don't try to fix every error, but there are some errors that just need to come out.  Sometimes, I'll get out of the ditch and it will be a couple of inches before I can get back into it.  I need to stop and pick that out.  It's not going away and it's not getting better.  But, if it's just a little error, I leave those until the end and then fix what I can find.  For one thing, this is the beginning of quilting and most small errors will not be visible after all the quilting is in.  And, for another, my standard of perfection is different at the end of a quilt than it is at the beginning, and I'll be willing to accept a lot of little errors rather than go back and pick them out.  

After the first round of ditch work, go back and fix any puckers in the back.  Do it now, before you get too far into the quilting because later, they'll be locked in by all the quilting and the only way to fix them will be to hand sew them down.  And, a pucker at this point may be large.  

Yesterday, I was out in the yard doing some watering.  I heard a sound and looked in a bucket and found a baby.  It must have fallen in and the mother couldn't get it out.  Based on the amount of poop in the bottom of the bucket, I think it had been in there a day or two.  Glad I found it.  I laid the bucket down next to the deck so it could get under there.  I noticed that something had dug under the greenhouse and now I know what it was.  The possums go there every year to have babies and my little bit of edging did not stop them.  They just found a new way in, so I feel pretty confident he was reunited with his mom last night.  

I have finished the drapes for the sewing room/office.  Finally.  You can see how they wrap around the corner of the rod and go back to the wall.  That blocks a lot of light from this westward facing window.  

And, they look nice open as well.  This is my favorite place to do appliqué or hand sewing.  It's so light and bright.  

This week, I got pictures of the plumbago, which is going nuts right now.  I don't grow a lot of blue flowers, so this is a nice treat.  

The hummingbird bush.  This is constantly full of hummers and butterflies right now.  

And, this clematis that came from my Mom's.  She had bought a bag of clematis tubers and then got sick.  I brought them home after she passed and this was the only one that was still viable.  It's a real beauty and has done better this year than I expected it to.  It's currently in a pot, but will be going in the ground in this same spot before cold weather.  

Rob was looking at paint chips for work on Saturday and I saw this display and it just sang out to me.  I love colors.  I love mediums more than darks and lights.  I guess we all do.  But, if you've ever tried to make a quilt out of just mediums, it doesn't go very well.  You have to have the dark and the light to make the stuff you love show up.  

The indictment of James Comey is a new level of corruption.  As citizens of the U.S., we are not used to this level of corruption and we aren't prepared to deal with it.  And, Trump knows that.  That's why he's doing it.  It's a surprise attack.  Shock and awe.  

I have no solutions.  This is Texas and there's no one to complain to because the politicians here are so experienced that they're teaching trump new ways to be corrupt and racist and bigoted.  

Everybody have a great week!  I hope you all find the equivalent of a baby in a bucket to rescue and feel good about.  We need things to feel good about.  

Lane

Just right

Okay, so not everything I did last week was just right, but some of it was just as right as the third bear's chair, bed and porridge.  

I've been looking for just the right lamp for my desk and I found it last week while I was walking the dog, and it cost my favorite price; free.  One man's trash, right?  It's a little scuffed and could use some touch up paint and it was covered in sawdust and took a while to clean up and it needed new bulbs.  I set it up on the side of my desk, where it was easy to access, and I used it on Friday.  Being lit from above instead of the side took 10 years off my face in teams meetings.  It turned out to be perfect.

When I pulled my desk out to set it up on Saturday, I forgot how short I'd wound my cords and I pulled everything off the back of the desk except the laptop.  My 20 minute project turned into a 2 hour ordeal where everything got moved except the monitors.  That was the beginning of a day that had considerable swearing in it, come to think of it because half the day turned out that way.  

By the end of it tho, I had found a happy place.  I had everything cleared off and pulled in the quilt and got started on the ditch work.  This is a huge quilt and getting the center of it into the machine so I could stretch the dinner plate sized portion of it that I was working on was a chore.  A lot of it was getting back in the swing of it and as I worked, I remembered things slowly and hunted down a pair of quilting gloves and pulled my shoulders down from around my ears and before I knew it, I was on my way.  

I'm doing a continuous line...okay sort of continuous.  I've gotten out of the ditch a few times and had to stop and unquilt and start again, but mostly a continuous line along the outside of the ovals created by the arcs.  Next, I'll do the insides of the ovals and quilt between each of the pieces that form the arcs.  Then, I can do something in the squares.  But, I don't know what yet.  It's going to be a while before I get there, so I have plenty of time to decide.  

The fish finally stopped being mad at me for cleaning their house and came out so I could see them.  It took a couple days.  It's only been a week and the nitrate levels are almost as high as they were before.  They're not at a dangerous level, but they are high enough that one error or a missed water change could push them into the dangerous level.  

One of the things I grow pretty successfully is citrus trees in pots.  I'm usually giving away Meyer lemons around Christmas.  I also grow key limes and Valencia oranges.  The limes are always ready at Labor Day and I usually make a key lime pie.  This year, I got lazy and didn't make the pie, but yesterday, I knew it was time to do it or give up on it, so I did.  They are so tart!  But the pie is perfect with the graham cracker crust and a little whipped cream to cut the tartness.  I make a baked custard when I make lemon and lime pies.  

Last week was pretty discouraging for the blog.  After Charlie Kirk died, there was no tolerance for dissent or disagreement here or in our country.  I didn't think what I said was very bad, but others disagreed.  Anonymously, of course.  I think I handled it well in the end, but there was an edit before that was pretty rough.  My apologies if that's the one you saw.   I am truly done with people going after me and then pretending that they're the victim tho.  

I believe we are at a crossroads where we, if not reverse course at least get into neutral.  But it really is hard to feel neutral in the face of so much all out attack against everything, everywhere, all at once.  Everything that I value.  Everything that I think is important.  Everything that I based my future on is under attack by people who see me being equal as somehow making them less equal.  And, they believe it so strongly that they're willing to destroy everything rather than let it happen.  Willing to tolerate corruption.  Willing to tolerate lawlessness.  Willing to pay more to get revenge against the concept of real equality for everyone.  

Everybody have a good week.  Find the love, find the tolerance.  Or, if that won't work, find enough peace to keep smiling.  

And, Liz in London, you had just the right words at just the right time.  Thank you!

Lane

A lot of not much

This week really was a lot of not much around here.  There was a lot of focus on pets and still more cleaning and a little yard work.  And, while I'm thankful it's cooling down for fall, 95* is still hot.   

Bella has been "off her feed" for a few days.  As she's gotten older, her food needs have changed a couple times.  I keep an eye on her and it didn't take long to realize she was having trouble getting wet food out of the bowl...it kept packing into the corners and the dry food we were feeding was too big to swallow whole, and she doesn't have many teeth left.  Saturday, we found the perfect size nuggets, designed for the little toy breed dogs and she's been scarfing it down and still getting to enjoy a little wet food on top of it.  It's still just a reprieve tho.  So, we focus on making sure every day has a little bit of good stuff in it.  And, hope that when I'm 85, someone does the same for me.

I didn't take many photos last week.  I meant to get a pic of the plumbago, which has gone nuts now that it's not being hidden under an umbrella (it was for the best).  But, I didn't get to that.  I did get a picture of these.  I don't understand them.  A couple times a year, the leap from the ground and bloom a proliferation of red flowers and then they recede again.  They're not the rain lilies that are common here.  Anyway, I was rinsing dishes (yes, I still do that before putting them in the dishwasher) and noticed this burst of red flowers, and it was these.  Out of the blue, they popped up and bloomed.  Our neighbor dug these up from around a tree and didn't want them anymore.  I took them all.  They're no trouble and don't take up any space and things can grow in and around them, and then suddenly they're there.  They'll last about a week and then they're gone again.  

I've been on the hunt for a new office chair.  When you move and your chair squeaks and someone asks what that sound was, it's probably time.  I'm cheap, so it takes a while to find the right chair.  I sat in one a couple weeks ago that almost came home with us, but it just wasn't quite right.  Then, I sat in this one on Saturday and for $9, it came home from Goodwill with us.  

I even gave it a test drive over the weekend and finished a small work/high impact project I walked away from Friday evening.  Having a new hire mentee is opening up some avenues for me to get attention.  I'm designing a file that she can use to share important info with her boss.  Getting that file built and in front of him quickly will get me some of the attention I'm trying to build back up.  When I announced I was retiring, I started shining spotlights on other people.  It didn't take long before they were the ones being talked about.  Now that I'm not retiring as quickly as I'd hoped, and I need to bring some of that spotlight back on me.  

I watched A Star Is Born with Gaga and Bradley Cooper last week so, of course, now I'm trying to learn to play Always Remember Us This Way on the ukulele.  I still practice every day.  My uke playing skills certainly outshine my ability to sing (damnit!)

I've been having trouble with my aquarium for a while.  I should have taken care of it before I started restocking it with fish, but I didn't really realize how big an issue it was going to turn into and it didn't seem to be hurting the fish, so I monitored the nitrate level, but didn't do much about it.  Plants flourished, but recently, algae eaters started to die.  It takes a lot to kill an algae eater.  Something really bad.  I decided I needed to do something about it this weekend, so I took all the plants and hard scape out of it and vacuumed out 40% of the water, thoroughly cleaned the gravel and then put it all back again, but in better places.  It took all afternoon, but the nitrate level is back where it needs to be.  It was still cloudy last night, so I didn't take a pic.  I tried to take one this morning, but the fish wouldn't come out.  I even fed and they wouldn't come out.  But, at least you can see the nice clean environment they live in.  

Before I can quilt the double wedding ring quilt, I need to clear up space in the studio.  I'm going to have to take apart a sewing station and I needed to put away the ironing board that was just gathering clutter.  Before I took down the ironing station, I did all that ironing that had built up on the end of it and before I took down the sewing station, I did that mending I needed to do and made some cloth bags.  I think I was really postponing taking it all apart, but whatever.  Now it's done and I can get started.  

I hate that we are falling into political violence.  I heard the things that were said right after Charlie Kirk was killed and I observed how all that talk about violence against republicans stopped when it turned out the shooter was from a religious republican family.  But, they're just waiting for a reason to declare war.  And, even if it had been a leftist lunatic, surely they understand that if they keep punching us, we're all eventually going to fight back in whatever way we feel like we can.  And, maybe that's the point.  Keep punching us until we fight back and then scream about what victims they are.  

I mean, nobody would enjoy watching n. mace get punched in the face with a big old sledgehammer fist more than me.  And, nobody would deserve it more than her.  But, I'm just not there yet.  Yet.  

Everybody have a good week.  Find something good in your life to hold onto.  Let that be the focus for a while.  

Lane

If you're reading this and about to anonymously post some "whataboutism" or some bullshit about how the killer was indoctrinated, I have a question for you.  

Why are you here, reading my blog?  I've asked you to go away nicely.  I've asked you to go away harshly.  Why do you keep coming back here?  Go find people that think like you do.  There are plenty and they are loud.  They should be easy to find.  

I didn't start this.  I was just some quiet gay quilter, raising a daughter and a flowerbed and making plans for a wonderful future.  You wouldn't even know me if I didn't write this blog.  My maga dad voted for the orange lunatic to hurt me so that he could feel more special about being a white man, even though I never did anything to make him feel less special.  I didn't do anything to any of you, except try to get my fair slice of the pie.  But racists and bigots think all the pie should be theirs because they're special.  

You're here to annoy me.  You want me to say something mean so you can whine about being a victim.  But, your little anonymous posts don't annoy me at all.  There's a "delete" button that takes care of them all.  I care what you think for exactly as long as it takes my pointer to get there and click it...and poof! you are gone!

Busy, busy

A lot has happened in the last couple weeks.  The person I liked in the interview process was hired and I'm going to be her mentor.  That's a good thing because one of the reasons I recommended her for the job is that she's going to be difficult to work with for a few months until she settles into what the job really entails.  She thinks it's going to be exciting every day, conquering foes and helping customers, but most days it's just adding 6 + 4 all day.  I have another co-worker that someone took a chance on that I've watched go through the same.  He's been the job about a year and is doing great and I'm hoping my mentee does the same.  I'm excited about what I have to offer to get her started.  

The supplies came in for the double wedding ring quilt.  

And, I got it pin basted.   Supervisor Bella was making sure I got all those lines straight.  I hope to start quilting next week.  I was going to get the machine set up, but I have a lot of stuff to do in the sewing room first.  I've set up my piecing machine in the way of my quilting machine without realizing it.  (It's been too long since I quilted anything big, I guess.)    

I didn't want to move things around because I'm also customizing some inexpensive drapes I bought.  The inexpensive ones seem to all be 52" wide and that's more than I need so I've bought them and am cutting them down to the sizes I need.  More about that later.  It's been quite the adventure and I'm going to end up with some beautiful custom drapery.  

I also took a break over the long Labor Day weekend to put this together.  A while back, I lost all control and started piecing a bunch of little quilts.  Then, that steam ran out this has been sitting in a to-go salad container in my sewing room for a bit.  (Salad containers are great for storing projects!)  Anyway, it's together now, Y seams and all.  Now I can move it from the stack of unstarted projects to the stack of unquilted tops.  The adventure never ends.  As I look at this picture, the colors are better in real life than the photo.  I wonder why.  That's not usually the case.  

There must have been millions of these little kits made.  I still find them once in a while on eBay.  It came with everything except the backing, including a square of poly batting that I plan to use, because why not?

This little shrimp plant is blooming.  For some reason, it's the only one.  The other one doesn't look like it's going to bloom at all and I can only assume it's now in too much shade.  It's the color of a cooked shrimp but this one is pale green and pink.  It was in too much sun and I moved it this year.  I swapped it with a yellow lantana that was in too much shade.  They were both nearly dead, but this year, they're recovering and both have bloomed.  They're still small, but I have high hopes for them next year.  

My sweet Bella.  Nearly blind, almost deaf, but she still enjoys food and wandering around outside and playing with Dottie.  I watched her trip in the back yard the other day, fall, roll on her back and wiggle around in the grass and then stand up and look around like "I meant to do that."  I love this picture.  She just couldn't be bothered with climbing the rest of the way into the bed so she slept this way most of the day.  

We filled the CRV with gas the other day and it takes a couple miles to adjust the MPG when we do.  We watched the MPG climb and at one point, Rob even coasted down a hill to see how high we could get it.  I think it got all the way to 113 before settling down to the 39.6 that we usually average.  I wish I was getting 105 mpg.  

Okay, that's about it for me today.  Trump bragged about declaring WAR on Chicago.  Then when a reporter asked him about it, he turned TACO.  Said he didn't say the things he'd said and belittled the reporter.  RFk jr said the same thing in his hearing last week.  Do these monkeys not understand how cameras work?  When you're recorded saying something, you can't pretend you didn't say it.  There are facts.  And, there are lies.  

There are not alternate facts.  

The fact is that there are at least 4 cities in the U.S. that have higher crime rates than Chicago.  But, they're safely in red states where it's okay...almost encouraged...to carry guns to kill one another.  Believe me.  I live in one of those red states and I know what I'm talking about.  

It's getting harder and harder for them to keep up with the lies.  Just like every liar, they're getting tangled up in their own web.  Twisting only makes it tighter.  

Everybody have a great week!  Watch your back, but also spend some time looking at the flowers.  All we can do is hang on and try not to get thrown out of the ride.  

Lane

C'mon baby!  Let's do the twist.  C'mon baaaby.  Let's do the twist.  And it goes like this!