Tackled by Tuesday, Shoot, a Package, and a Product Review

Today we did a Tackle-it Tuesday with the end of our family room that holds videos, video equipment, etc. We must own several hundred videos, and today we sorted them, cleaned out that end of the room, put Xbox controllers all in a basket and the games all in a file cabinet, and generally made the area around the TV look peaceful again.

My original plan for the day was to pin out a quilt top that I have ready, and piece together 2 others. Sounds like too much for one day, but one is a mini and one is all laid out in order to sew. Alas, my plans aren't always, or even usually, what actually happens.

Instead I got up today and took 5 LARGE boxes of good, clean baby clothes to our local Project Hope. Then Artemas and I went to the range to shoot a little. I got these awesome pictures. The one of Artemas shooting, I actually and accidentally captured the cloud of cordite and the bullet, making its way to the target. Too cool.


These two targets are mine. The one on the left was shot with the .22 Ruger longbarrel. You can see the cluster is in an area 1.5" x 2". The other target, while not centered, still shows the shots clustered in a 2" x 3" area. To give me some credit, the target was only 6" across and was shot from about 20 feet away. I shot it with our Lorcin .380, which is the one I carry, until my Bersa Thunder comes in. I like the .22 better, but being a longbarrel, it looks funny down the back of my pants. LOL.

Ok, on to other things! When we got home, I tackled the laundry once again. DH was off work yesterday, and we ended up spending the entire day in Knoxville. Seriously we didn't get home until like 9 PM. That is kind of late to start Monday Laundry Madness. So I did all 7 loads today and folded them. As incentive to get them done and put away, I folded them all over our bed. Can't go to sleep until it is done! (And it *is* done.)

Here is one that tackled ME. We got a new computer, a smoking-hot Dell, a few months ago. Since then, I have put off and put off having to sift through files on the old computer, suck them onto a flash drive or something portable, and put them in the new computer. Today I discovered I needed an MSWorks type application and guess what? Our laptop AND the new computer do not either one have it. The old one did. So I had to sit down and transfer files. Note on the screen, this ONE folder it is transferring says it has 114 minutes remaining in the transfer! (Also note how many folders I had done already!) When I hooked the drive up to our new computer, it transferred ALL the files in 3 minutes 14 seconds. Quite a difference. I am so spoiled.

Ok yesterday I put out a teaser about a spindle sent to me by my beautiful friend Marion in Indiana. She has a shop, Mommbaear7, but she is in well-deserved vacation mode right now.


She sent me 5.6 oz of this gorgeous superwash in pacific blue with flecks of pink and gold... also 170 yards of incredibly soft 2-ply handspun in gray and white (thinking a little top-down raglan sweater for Betsy on huge needles), and the spindle.

The top of the spindle is bone, carved with two elephants. On the underside of the bone, she has pressed and baked thin layers of this very Aborigine-design polymer clay cane in black and white turtles. I LOVE it. And you can see, I have already given it a whirl, so to speak, to test it out.

While I am mentioning whirling things, go on over to Feeling Sheepish for a wonderful giveaway of 2 oz. of handpainted milk-protein fiber!

I am going to close tonight with a product review. The other day I went in a grocery I usually don't patronize, and there were these chips made by Herr's. They had several interesting-sounding flavors, like Heinz Ketchup, Pizza, and Cheddar and Horseradish. In the interest of pleasing nearly everyone, I bought Pizza and Cheddar & Horseradish.

The pizza chips really *almost* taste like pizza. I have a comprehension problem with a product that tastes pizza-ish but is room temperature and crunches. Though I guess in my past, there were times I probably ate crunchy, 2-day-old room-temp pizza. Can't remember though (LOL!). Anyway, one with a really sensitive sense of taste can taste various flavors of tomato, garlic, oregano, and some stinky cheese, perhaps Provolone or Parmesano-Reggiano. Not bad for pizza that crunches.

The Cheddar & Horseradish chips are WOW, HORSERADISH! The cheddar flavor is a base note, but the horseradish (which I find to be slightly bitter) is strong enough to clear the sinuses after about 15 chips. Which is supposed to be the good-sense limit anyway.

We Came, We Saw, We Tackled

Today being Tackle-it Tuesday, I had plans. Big plans. But my oldest son, being the thoughtful kinda guy he is, decided the night before that he was WAY too tired to do the dishes. This is what I woke up to this morning.

Yes folks, that is ONE day's worth of dishes in the Ross household. Not even a day's worth, since the dishwasher from 1974 is 2/3 full. I might add that I also have deep-bowl sinks.

So the first thing I got to tackle this morning, was the kitchen. Forty-five minutes later, I had done all the big dishes by hand and put them away, all but the one cast-iron skillet. Filled the rest of the dishwasher and run it. Cleaned both sinks and the countertop. Filled a sink with soapy water to soak small bits that could wait for the next dishwasher load. Cleaned the burner supports and stove top. It looked like this.

(By the way, yes, my cabinet doors are missing, because I am whitewashing the oak. Ditto the lower cabinets, where I tested only one drawerfront. And the ugly B/W tile countertops are little by little being replaced by stylish travertine tile. Stay tuned.)

Beverly and I made homemade Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins (recipe at end of post). While I was putting the muffins in the oven, she picked up the stirring spatula, licked it, and said, "Mmmm! Dish-us!" Cute.

The next Tackle-it that greeted me was the sight of the rest of the unfolded laundry from yesterday. I might say, most of the laundry from yesterday, since I got a late start on my Monday Laundry Madness. After this pic I actually added 2 more loads to fold, which were out by the dryer.

At some point, I had to stop folding and run after car and motorcycle parts that were ordered last week and finally came in. We also went to a big-box warehouse for olive oil for Richard's soaps and ate a pizza while there. When we got home, Artemas spread a slice of Meat Lover's pizza with marshmallow and Raisinettes, for a snack. Disgusting! What a teenage boy won't eat is a short list, I'll tell ya.

So after dinner and a nice ride in the car, I finished folding the clothes. Once again, relief. Here is Beverly, "helping." Some lot of help too. I do have a load of stored baby clothes to wash for the big yard sale Des and I are going to have the Fri. and Sat. after July 4th weekend. But other than that, no more laundry for the week. Yee-haw!

I have a pic to show. I did a couple new yarns in the last couple days, for my My7kids Recycled Yarns. One of them sold in less than 24 hours, and I have recreated it and relisted it. Here is a B's Eye View of the other one, being reskeined to mix the colors.


One last Tackle-it! I am in a Mini Quilt Swap that is due in a couple weeks. The lady I am assigned to likes wild animal prints and Africana, also traditional quilt patterns and Kaleidoscope. The Kaleidoscope block is rather challenging because of the many pieces that meet in the center. I have cut the pattern down to a 4" finished block. On the left here are my fabric selections this morning.

On the right, are the fabrics tonight, cut into 300 little bitty pieces, which will make a 20" square "field" for the quilt top. The wavy-lined piece will be a little border around the quilt. I haven't decided yet what piece the backing will be, though I have two in the running.

Alright, muffins! These are SO good! And blueberries are in season in most of the USA right now, so take advantage of them!

Recipe makes 12 decent sized standard muffins, or 6-8 Jumbo muffins, or about 18 mini muffins. They freeze well, too, so if you are single or your family is small, make a batch anyway. Freeze them, get one out in the morning for a morning-commute breakfast that will make your fellow mass-transit travelers absolutely jealous! MUCH better than any overpriced thing out of the case at Starbucks... and a great way to economize, too!

Preheat oven to 400 F. Grease muffin pans or use paper cups. Make sure rack is in the top 1/3 of the oven.

Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins

1 Cup Sour Cream (we use Lowfat) (Yogurt would do too)
2 large chicken eggs or 1 duck egg
1/3 cup (5.6 T) butter
1 cup sugar
~~~~
2 Cups unbleached flour, divided (1 Cup + 1 Cup)
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
~~~~
1 Pint fresh or frozen blueberries or 1/2 cup dried blueberries

Mix all the sloppy moist ingredients and sugar in a large bowl until they are homogenous and pale yellow. Add 1 Cup of the flour, the baking powder and soda, and salt and stir in. Toss the other 1 Cup of flour with the blueberries, add to the batter, and gently stir until barely mixed in. Spoon into prepared muffin cups (2/3 full) and bake 16 minutes for Jumbo, 12 minutes for standard, or 10 minutes for mini muffins. So easy and tasty! Enjoy!

A New Spinner

Thursday Des was down at our house and decided to spin something. She was spinning up a batt I got from ArtemisArtemis at Etsy. Beverly was sitting in her chair, hollering at Desiree and Diantha. They tried offering her something to eat, offering her something to drink, asking her if she wanted to watch a video... nothing helped. So they handed her a spindle and a piece of green Merino wool, and that did the trick. She just wanted to spin something!

The batt in question was a mix of just about everything: Merino, mohair locks, assorted wools, bamboo, and sari silk... and was only 1.95 oz. But Des got about 98 yards of this beautiful yarn, which she said was Heffalumps And Woozles on Parade. We put it up in Diantha's shop.

Yesterday we dyed some Corriedale a nice turquoise color, and some Montadale a fuchsia purple. I had wanted to duplicate a batt that Diantha has in her shop, but the purple came out more like Prince purple. Diantha and I spun the turquoise with a little white bamboo thrown in for shimmer, into a sock weight single. Now we are spinning the purple (also with a little bamboo thrown in) into a heavy worsted. The idea is to ply them together. We shall see.

We have a short day today. Have to package some orders for mailing, before noon. Then we have to make cookies and Krispy treats and take them to our church by 3:30. Drama performance services are at 3, 5, and 7. We are helping feed the cast and crew... then attending the 5 PM service/performance and working the nurseries for the 7 PM one.

I got the mini quilt in the mail from the 4 Seasons Monochromatic Mini Quilt Swap. Here in the left is a pic... it is RED. I did say my favorite colors were purple and red, and favorite season Fall. So this is my quilt partner's interpretation of that. It is beautifully done in little miniature pieced blocks, and bound in solid red. It does give an impression of falling leaves. I like it.

I got a main Treasury this morning, called Larry, Moe, and Curly... but it's not what you think! Here is a screen shot!

Getting Just a Little Done

Today I got the binding cut and done around 9 potholders. They were Diantha's, and she cut 5" charms for the swap for me while I did her bindings. My machine was messing up so I took a break in the middle of it so my head wouldn't pop off. I would post a pic, but they are for the Weird and Ugly Fabric Challenge so... you just have to wait!

I also got a handbag made for my HeartFeltFun Boutique at Etsy. I called it "O My Handbag"... it is pale pea-green felted wool/angora from a recycled sweater, it has a cotton webbing and leather recycled belt in green, cream, and tan for a strap, and it is lined in deep pea-green with white polka dots. It has 2 inner pockets and zips shut at the top. A nice roomy 12" wide by 9" high by 3" deep too!

Diantha spun up one of her lavender wool/cashmere, orange corriedale, teal merino batts today. I don't know how much yarn she got but it is every bit as fun as what she spun yesterday. See?

I got a Treasury West tonight, called Much Ado About... Nothing? or is it Zero? Or is it an O? Here on the left is a screen shot. Be sure to stop by and click around!

And, ADustyFrame from SHEteam generously included my Daffodils recycled yarn in her main Treasury, Daffodown Dilly. Be sure to visit hers and click around too. The She team members all homeschool their kids, so being able to maintain an Etsy shop on top of it is a real feat!

I was JUST reminded that we not only have 4-H in the morning, one of the kids was supposed to submit a tabletop exhibit on processing fiber. I have all the caption labels and fibers, but used the exhibit board last week on gardening. Even if I ran up and got one, it would take til 2 AM to put it together. Then be up at 7 to make the meeting in the next town over, by 8:30. I just can't. So GREAT, I just got the 2nd Bad Mom award in a week. Must be a record.

But, on a happy note, it means picking up donuts for breakfast.

Heck, for donuts, I would just about stay up glueing fiber to cardboard.

When the Students Surpass the Teacher

A friend of mine says you can always tell when a teacher has done a good job, when the student begins to surpass the teacher. That has happened to me already with my oldest daughter, with her writing, quilting, knitting, spinning. Now it is happening to me all over again with Diantha.

Diantha is only 13, but already she is a great quilter, with a terrific eye for color and what seems to be few restrictions on how she combines. It is amazing to see really. She made these two quilt blocks for our block-a-day calendar, and for her Initial challenge on my N2Quilting Group at Yahoo. I love her freedom in the fabrics she chooses and her nonchalance for how she puts them together. We are playing catchup (after the all-day bullet fiasco on Monday) but here are hers for yesterday and today.

She has been doing some spinning also. I bought some roving balls from Claydancer on Etsy who said she has become allergic to wool. One of the rovings was called Mardi Gras - deep red but has small streaks of a golden color, green, and purple in it. I was wanting to spin it up, and then knit it into a semi-permanent felted Easter basket for Betsy. So Diantha says, mom, you have stuff to do... let me spin some of that roving for you. Here is the end result. The roving ball was 4 oz. of Merino, and Diantha ended up with 108 yards of this luscious, even, heavy-worsted yarn. Wonderful!

I walked and ran some errands today, taught the kids, held B (a lot!), made some copies and a Post office run, and another run out to drop Diantha at church for youth group, and for eggs at the store. And, I actually got a quilt block done, for a change, though it is Monday's block, so I am still a couple days behind. Oh well! This one is going to go in my Connie Rosolli mini quilt in the Bumbling Bounty Hunters Mini Quilt Challenge 2009. And it also qualifies for the Black and White Quilt Challenge Project.

Some Stuff I Got!

I got a package Saturday from my VERY secret Secret Pal! She is SO secret, she even mailed my package to my daughter's house so I wouldn't see where it came from! Anyway I didn't get a chance to get a pic of the contents til today, so here it is!

I got a quilting magazine (that I had not read yet), a book on Bargello quilts, which I love, a Dark Hershey Bar (yes this is just the wrapper but I really have not eaten all the candy yet... just stashed it to fool my kids), a 4.5" square ruler that I really needed, and 3 beautiful Fat Quarters... one in very handy and bold black and white, one in a gorgeous rainbow batik, and one in my favorite, purple. Hiding somewhere in the pile is also a package of sewing machine needles, which I needed badly... seems I am on my LAST one! Oh, and a beautiful quilt notecard with a little note in it. So if you are reading this, STEPHANIE, Thank you! Thank you!

Also I am a day or two behind on the block of the day, because I have been doing yarn and knitting and making stuff for my etsy shops. But today I did a Teacup Full of Flowers applique for Connie Rosolli. Right now the block is the same as on the left... I can't decide whether to leave it that way, or to add buttons... black like in the middle, or yellow-gold like on the left. Any opinions?

HOW Many Kids Do I Have?

Last night my 17yos spent the night at my sister's house so that today he could go help my BIL load and stack firewood. One advantage of homeschooling... sometimes you can do something else. Artemas actually gets a good chance to study some economics firsthand when he stays there, as my BIL is a Forex trader. But anyway Artemas wasn't here today.

Des came down with the babies and we pinned out her Artificial Prairie 9-patch quilt that she started making when she was 12. She did some free-motion quilting on one of my old machines. I got my Sally Sweet quilt pinned out too.

I also got a new yarn done for my my7kids yarn shop. The original was a wool/angora/nylon blend in pale blue and periwinkle... I overdyed parts of it with a nice earthy green. It is sock weight... pretty!


Diantha and I both got blocks done yesterday. It was a no-block day again, just a quilt pic. So she did a Dutchman's Puzzle (left) and I did a Bachelor's Puzzle, for the Joe Morelli quilt. He is a Bachelor and a Puzzle, alright! And it seems the theme for the day was puzzle blocks, though we didn't plan it that way.

Today while Des was here, Diantha got a block done again. She did an Ocean Waves block (left again) (no really it's still here). I didn't get mine done until later this evening. I did the block shown on the calendar. I don't know what they called it but I am calling it Crosshairs. I am sorry the pic stinks! For some reason a couple of the pics I took tonight, I had to color-correct the HECK out of them!

I was making a pot of bean soup for dinner. What was leftover from tonight I was going to use Sat. night to do a pot of chili. When I went to put Beverly to sleep for her late-afternoon nap, I scorched the soup. Yes, folks, the wonderful cook Scorched. The. Soup. Great. Fortunately it happened before I added carrots, celery, onion, and smoked sausage... so I didn't waste ALL the food, just basically beans, water, and garlic. WHEW!

When Des left, she invited both the big girls to go home with her, until she and Tony come back Saturday to help Richard and I do some work. Des has had one terrible headache for a couple days. Since Tony has to go to work at night and sleep tomorrow, she thought having the girls there would be a help to her with the babies.

So with Allen at work and Artemas still gone (where WAS that kid anyway?) and Richard working until 11 and the girls gone, I had two children. TWO CHILDREN. What the heck? It's been almost 21 years since I had TWO children. So with only a couple little kids, no hubby and a burned dinner, I did what any red-blooded Yuppie would have done: packed the kiddies into carseats and went to Burger King. LoL.

Tonight Josiah wants to sleep on the couch, because he is lonely.

I am lonely too.

In three minutes, Beverly and Richard will totally cure me of that.

Dinner Out and a Show In

Tonight my dh and I went out to dinner. Rare for us! Last Spring we had a booth in a small local craft show, and I won a door prize of dinner at Shoney's. The waitress says, "Oh, that includes a drink and dessert too!" So I got Richard's coffee and a water for me, we both had the hot bar, and a hot fudge cake sundae for dessert, which we shared. And I think I am about to die. I mean really my stomach feels like it is about to es-plode. Friday morning I was down another pound, making 5 down for the month. Now I am afraid to get on the scale. Maybe I will wait until Friday again. LOL

This morning I caught Beverly "quilting." She had my rotary cutter, some Taco Bell napkins, and a piece of 5" ruler. I kept checking to make sure the lock was on so she wouldn't hurt herself. She would lay the napkins on my cutting board, lay the ruler on them, and "cut" around them with the rotary cutter. Clever.

I put my slipper through another HOT wash, cold rinse and HOT dryer, and this is the result. I think if I did the process one more time it would be fulled completely, but it would fit my Veronica (size 6 shoe) instead of me (size 8.5). If I do another pair after this one, I will do 28 st around instead of 32, and 18 rows from the full # of stitches at the toe to the beginning of the heel increases instead of 14. But when I put them on, they mold to my foot, and they are WARM, which was the goal. My feet get so cold on the floors in this house. So I am happy :D The stripes in this yarn were just different balls of wool that I threw in while spinning... and what looks like pink is more like a deep mauve, and it is Alpaca. I had never spun alpaca before, it is very long-staple and slick, almost like a stiffer silk.

There really wasn't a block on our calendar today, since Saturday and Sunday are combined. But rather than do nothing, I did a Dutchman's Puzzle. This block is 6.5" square, and I like it a lot.

Ok so I didn't get all that laundry folded yet, but nobody's perfect. And the night isn't over yet. One of my sons bought me The Rocky Horror Picture Show on DVD for my birthday, so I am going to put it in the player in our room and watch it, and make a mess of 40 piles of laundry on our bed. LoL.

Small Progress

I have been so sleepy lately. I don't know if it is the cold or what. But drag me out of bed in the morning, and it is all I can do not to need a nap just about any time of the day. No. I am NOT pregnant. Though my dh's boss did send people home early last night, and last time one of us got to go home early from work, we got Beverly. LoL.

I couldn't post a picture of my block Friday night because one of my rat-fink kids temporarily lost the card to my camera. Again. And since right now I am broker than the Ten Commandments, we just did a house-upheaval search instead of run to Walmart to get another one. While I was AFK I did some more yarns and sold some yarns, so it wasn't really time wasted.

Friday's "block" was not really a block at all... it was strip-pieced sashings for the stupid Teacup quilt. So I did the strip-piecing, and instead cut them into 4 units and made a Rail Fence block. This one is ugly, but it has some of the same fabrics as the other Chicken blocks, so whatever.

Yesterday and today were combined on our calendars, and there wasn't a block... just a picture of a quilt top. So I spent yesterday working on the medallion I am going to use with the corners I already made, in the Monochromatic 4 Seasons Quilt Challenge swap. This Tree of Life block has 86 pieces in a 12" finished size block. As of last night, this is all the progress I had made.

Today I filled in the gaps, sewed everything together, squared everything up, and got the center medallion block done. I only lost *2* little points in all those triangles, so that is pretty good.

Last time I did a Tree of Life block, I was using a strange sewing machine that didn't have the seam allowance clearly marked, and the tree came out 1 1/2" bigger than I needed to fit the quilt it had to go in. I had to take in seams everywhere and it was just terrible.

Unfortunately, one of the points that doesn't match up perfectly is in the tree trunk, where it sticks out like a sore thumb. ~~ sigh ~~ But I added the corner triangles and here it is! It is 17 1/2" inches right now, and I think it is pretty nice so far!

I did some new yarns, a Superbowl Widow series. LoL. I will do some more tomorrow, after we find out who the other team will be. So far though I have Game Day, Gridiron, and Arizona Cardinals. Right nice.

And I sold the Spiderman Meets Obama yarn in only 20 hours. That isn't a record for me, but pretty darn good (or is it pretty Yarn good?).

Also yesterday in the shower, getting ready to go off to church and watch the babies in the nursery, I had an epiphany. My daughter Desiree and her dh Tony and their babies were down... also 5 of my other kids were home and one little girl who practically lives here on the weekend. So my house was full of noise and kids, and I thought, that is the way I like it really.

One of the promises in the Bible is that a woman will be saved through childbearing. The actual original Greek word means not just having a baby, but the scope of having the child and rearing it to adulthood. And I think one of the things we are "saved" from (if we are lucky, and willing to let the Lord work in us), is ourselves.

When I was in High School I was briefly engaged to a guy, and we planned to have NO children. If I had married him, that would have probably still been a good idea, since he turned out to be a person who used drugs, beat his wife, and was all around a despicable kinda guy. And on my own, I really don't like kids that much. Well I like mine, but as a rule, they are messy and noisy and you can't make other people's kids behave (and often the people don't make their own kids behave).

But like taking up my cross (my lot in life) daily and following Christ (who always knows what is best for me, even if I don't agree)... I have had to lay aside my own personal reservations and aversions to children, because I was willing to let the Lord give me the people He wanted here for whatever His reasons were.

And in doing that, I have learned to be less selfish, to give and be kind and be a servant even when I don't feel like it, to bind up hurts and share joys and keep a child-like delight in God's creation as each new little person gifted to me discovers their feet, and fresh grass, and ladybugs, and clouds. And I think for that, I am better, gentler (which is a BIG thing for me), and more like Christ.

At least I hope so.

New Yarn, New Blocks

Well yesterday I didn't really do my block. Oops! Well first of all it was a stupid, paper-pieced Teacup. I don't do paper-piecing, I don't like tea, and I don't do teacups. So there. What I did do yesterday, was spend the day spinning the rest of the Spiderman Meets Obama yarn. I am really happy with the turnout and I have it up for sale in my Etsy shop. I have 7 Obama yarns up, and I am offering free shipping on them until midnight on Inauguration Day.

So today I made a block to make up for yesterday. These are the LOWER setting triangles for the Monochromatic quilt top I am making (the operative color being ORANGE). So the top setting triangles were brights, like a sunrise, and the lower ones are darker orange to orangey-browns, like earth.

Today's block was stupid too. It was a lil' bitty Diamond In A Square that finished to 3". I mean really. Like what am I going to do with that? And if I make it finish to 9" like the rest of the Chicken blocks I have been doing, it would look just dumb. So I made it a 9-patch Diamond Square. Nothing like complicating things for myself. Here is a pic of the block, and below I will give you directions, just in case you are a quilter or piecer and want to try one on your own. And below that, I will give the math, so if you don't care about that part, you can glaze your eyes over and skip a paragraph.

Cut 2, 5.5" squaresof a rather dark fabric. Halve them diagonally. If your print is directional, halve one upper right to lower left and one upper left to lower right. These are your outer setting triangles. Cut 2 squares of a light or medium tone fabric to 4 3/16". I know this is an odd measure but just trust me. 3/16" is just shy of 1/4" on your ruler, so measure to 4 1/4" and back the ruler off a hair and you will do fine. Halve them diagonally as you did the 5.5" squares. Then cut 5 dark and 4 light, 2" squares.

Assemble the 2" squares into a 9-patch. Press and square it up to 5" exactly. Next take the triangles that were 4 3/16" squares and sew one to each side of the 9-patch, letting a *leetle* corner of each one extend evenly past the edge of the 9-patch. Press and square this up to 6 7/8" exactly. Then sew the larger, dark triangles to the sides as you just did the light triangles. Press and square up to 9.5". Tada!

The Math: The Total square will finish to 9" plus seams. So half that, for the outer triangles, is 4.5". You add an inch in order to compensate for having to halve the squares diagonally and make a seam. So the outer squares are cut to 5.5". The next square will be the hypoteneuse of 4.5" (4.5" x 1.414) which is 6.36". The nearest common measure we would use is 6.375" (or 6 3/8"). Half that is 3 3/16" inches. You add an inch for making it into triangles and adding a seam, 4 3/16". The hypoteneuse of 3 3/16" (3.187" x 1.414) is 4.5" which gives you your finished size of the 9-patch. 4.5" divides evenly into 1.5" finished components. After adding seam allowances, the pieces must be cut to 2" square. Easy as 1, 2, 3, 5. LoL

Richie was off today so he got some stuff moved in the back porch and otherwise we goofed off, went to the post office and the store for trash bags, wheat bread and sugar. Tonight we are going to watch the new CSI (I can't stand that Grissom is leaving) and a movie, I will read to him and call it a night. Goodnight!

Doin' Nothin'

Well I have spent all day doin' nothin'. Except.

I did spend about 2 hours this morning in the computer catching up on 3 days worth of emails. And, I string-pieced together a block that I am going to use as my top 2 setting corners on a Challenge quilt I am doing. It is a monochromatic quilt in shades of, are you ready for this? Orange.

I cleaned up a mountain in my room, down to bare wall and had the boys rearrange the room for me. We put my little lampstand-slash-bookshelf where Richard's dresser has been, because it takes up less room there than the dresser did and that means we can actually open the closet door all the way. We put Richard's dresser where Beverly's crib was. And the whole reason for this change-around, we put Beverly's crib where my lampstand-slash-bookshelf table was, against the narrow wall between our bedroom door and the closet.

Richard said that the crib was against an outer wall of the house and Beverly would get too cold at night. Which is true, she did. She seems to like her crib where it is, and I guess I will get used to it there. It is easier to get to her if she should need me at night... she is just about 6 feet away and parallel to our bed. But before, it was a straight shot from my side of the bed to the bathroom and now I will have to detour a couple feet around the end of the crib. But at least she will be warm.

I finished another baby bootee and a little bitty hat. I don't know this baby at all. My SIL works with this man, and his wife had their long-desired baby at only 25 weeks, the day before Christmas. He weighed only a pound, but he apparently is a little fighter and is hanging in there. My daughter Desiree is making the baby a little quilt. More than 20 years ago, when I was pregnant for Desiree, I went into labor at 25 weeks too. Back then a baby born that early wouldn't have survived. So we lived through 12 weeks of bedrest, medications that made me sick to my stomach, and tests, and ended up with Des. That girl has been worth her weight in gold, a blessing through and through.

So I want to write a letter to the parents and tell them to hang in there, keep the faith, and this little boy will be a blessing to them no matter what the outcome is. And send him a little hat, bootees, and mitts to keep him warm there in the hospital. In fact I might make 2 hats, one for when his head gets a LEETLE bigger. This one would fit a small apricot.

Oh, and I made Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip jumbo muffins so I could use them to take pics of some stainless-steel food-grade display boxes I want to sell. We had to eat the muffins afterward. Too bad, so sad.

I still have a stack of jeans to put away off my bed, and a stack of recycleable sweaters to find a home for, so I have to go. Goodnight!

Away But Not Idle

Alright, I have been away since Friday. Saturday Des and Tony and the babies were here most of the day. The guys went to lay flooring in some more of the back porch. If you could see my back porch, you would know this is no small task. This house has no attic or garage or basement, so everything we owned that wouldn't fit INSIDE the house and still be able to put the people in it, went on the back porch. And a lot of things that I wanted to leave behind in that condemned shell of a house for someone else to have to Dumpster, but my packrat DH brought here anyway. That house was 2,980 sq. ft. with almost as much storage. And this one is 1450 sq. ft. So imagine.

So the guys had to jostle and move stuff, and I brought a BUNCH of boxes into the house to go through. Found an entire box of my bath towels that were missing since we moved 2 years ago! And some stuff to sell on Craigslist.

Sat. night we had to work the nursery at church, but for the late service, no one showed up. We did church Sun. morning as a family and spent several hours running to a few stores, then my BIL came to help try to fix the broken spindle on the Ramvan. They had to give up after a while because it was so dang cold. He came back today and got most of it done but still needs ONE part from the junk yard so will get it tomorrow and come again to work on it.

Over the weekend I started a lil' bitty project of knitting some bootees, mitts, and a hat for a baby. I got one bootee done while sitting in church Sunday morning. Don't gasp. I am kinesthetic, which means I learn while using my hands. So I often knit while listening or watching, because doing something actually helps me remember.

Meanwhile I did the Sat/Sun Snowball block. The calendar showed a stupid snowman in the middle. I did chickens instead. They are both what is called "needle-turn" applique, but one is my own goofy design and one is what is known as Broderie Perse... which is when one cuts a motif (flower or other design) out of a fabric and appliques it on another block or piece of fabric. So here are the girls from the weekend. Cute huh?

And here is my other ugly 9-patch, which is today's block. Tomorrow there is not a block listed. But I am in a challenge, and one of the things I need for it are four setting-triangle blocks. I am going to make two large blocks and halve them diagonally. So tomorrow I will make at least one of those, so I have something to do for the day. Because we can all tell I have nothing to do.

While I was at it, I also did 4 new yarns in honor of the inauguration: Hopes and Promises, Winds of Change, Malia Obama, Sasha Obama, and renamed and relisted a yarn in honor of Michelle Obama. I also have Obama-rama up to sell. LoL. Whether I agree politically with our presidential choice is immaterial. Every inauguration is a new beginning.

I have the first half of Spiderman Meets Obama done, skeined, washed, and the twist set. Hopefully I can finish the rest tomorrow... too tired tonight to do it, and my back is hurting. But I may wait until Wednesday to list it, because that is the date the comic debuts.

Gotta go get Richie from work. Goodnight!