It's Been a Week

or more since I posted. Wanna know what we have been doing?

Started off with the Knoxville Creative Hands Street Team show and sale, cost us $70 for the booth. Diantha sold ONE yarn, Des sold 1 bag. My dh sold enough soap to cover the booth. Here is a pic. I sold NOTHING.

Got my period (sorry if TMI) 4 days early, during the craft sale. Came down with the flu, during the craft sale.

While down this week with flu, we found out that the little girl next door who spent the night a few times recently, gave my kids lice. In 23 yrs. of homeschooling, none of my kids have ever had them. I don't know how people whose kids are in school can cope with this happening. I have had to drag my fevered butt out of bed every day this week to treat hair, bedding, etc.

I passed a kidney stone this week. And despite the weakness and flu and pain, did several new yarns.

My dh, while working under the house to put in a new drain for the washing machine, to move it to the new laundry area, broke a water main. I have never seen this before, but the main water supply coming in to this house, at least the only one we have found so far, is a rubber hose coming up out of the ground. Crazy. We have had the water shut off for 36 hours now. He filled buckets of water we could flush toilets with. Has bought the wrong parts twice now... once PVC instead of CPVC, and once the wrong size screw clamps.

Beverly took a new, 2-year-old's-eye-view pic, This one of Diantha.

Meanwhile my 11yod has oil in her hair for 8 hours today because the water isn't back on, to wash it out. And the water isn't yet back on because...

I sent my 17yos off to the PO today (3 miles away) with a package of yarn to mail. On the way, a car cut him off, sending him and the motorcycle (a classic 1973 250 Suzuki) off the pavement. The police called to notify us he was in the ER. Full chest/spine/cranial CAT scan AND xrays, hand xrays, road rash down his Left arm, stomach, legs (but not into muscle), broken Left collar bone. Spent 4 hours in the ER.

The Officer said he wasn't doing anything wrong, was riding slowly at the time (20mph), but cited my son for no motorcycle permit (I was supposed to take him this week but sick) and no insurance. Plus the cops had the bike towed, NOT by the company that honors my AAA. We don't know yet if the bike will recover. It has been an $8000 day w/no health insurance. We are glad our son is ok. Motorcycles are great, and we love them. You can't help the jerks out there. BUt they are, after all, only metal and rubber. They are fully replaceable. People are not. So we breathe a prayer of thanks tonight that our Artemas (Greek name means Safe and Sound), though hopped up on hydros, is truly Safe and Sound.

And I am really, really, tired.

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!

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!

What Vacation?

Richie has been on vacation this week. Typically, a vacation for him is not a vacation for me.

Usually, when we go on vacation, I make reservations at the campground, or motel on those rare occasions. Though we don't do a motel very often, because they make us have 2 rooms because of all the kids. That gets expensive pretty fast.

I map out a route. I make lists of what we will need for food (in the car and cooler and camping, if we are), lists of what each person needs for clothing, grocery shopping lists, what needs to go in the car (especially if we are camping).

Then I shop, do laundry, pack a food box, mark refrigerator food for the trip, pack duffel bags, clean out the car, pack the car in a reasonable manner so that we have feet room and can reach the cooler, food box, coloring/puzzle book bin, pillows, towels (in case of spills or someone throwing up). The day of the trip we get up early, I make sure the kids are dressed, everyone uses the bathroom, and nothing is left out of the car. Richard goes around turning off lights.

Then we get in the car and drive 600 miles. While we are driving we magically have food to eat and stuff to drink and books to read. And when we get there, Richard magically has all his clothes.

While we are gone, I make sure everybody keeps their things together, has all their shoes, puts wet clothes in a special bag, cook (if we are camping), and at some point go do a load or two of laundry. We drive home and Richard magically has clean clothes to go back to work.

Having him on vacation at home is not much different, with the exception that I didn't have to pack a small version of all our belongings into the car and go somewhere else to use them.

~~ sigh~~

Anyway this week he is working on finishing the shower in our bathroom, and on cleaning out the back porch. Or not. In four days, he goes back to work.

Today I made 2 new yarns for my my7kids recycled yarn shop at etsy. And, I made the block of the day, which is called something I can't remember on the calendar page which I can't find, but I know the block to be called Swamp Angel. It is a modified Ohio Star, with Half-Square Triangles (HSTs) in the corners.

And chickens, if you are lucky.

BRRRR!

I thought it would be such a shame to deprive the world of any views of my new ride. So I have added them to yesterday's post, below (please go see! I LOVE this bike! I had forgotten how much until we started it up and I nearly cried!) Definitely not the weather to ride! It is freezing tonight! Guess I will have to go start it up every day and hear it run, just to do my heart good (and keep the gas from turning to varnish).

I love to quilt, but when the weather gets like this, I want to knit. Today I completed another ski band, and spun up about half the Happy Begonia Batt I got from Maisie Handspun off etsy. I took the batt with me to church (left it in the car, don't worry!) and played with it afterward when I went to my sister's to collect one of my kids that Des had borrowed. Which makes my sister mad. The spinning, not the kid borrowing. My sister doesn't have any hobbies besides watching TV, even though dd#1 and I have offered to teach her (ANYthing!). But she gets mad if we bring our knitting or spinning to her house. I can only tolerate so much idle sitting, watching a glowing screen. [shrug] And Des spent the DAY there today, while her dh is building a platform for their bed in the garage. So, we brought our hobbies.

Today I listed 3 new yarns: Another Shepherd / Joseph, Mary's Righteous Husband / and Nestor, the Donkey that Carried Mary. Another Shepherd and Nestor are both made from an Irish Heathers hand-knitted and seamed sweater. They were natural brown sheep wool, which I hand dyed. Gorgeous! Joseph was a beautiful blue sweater, a 2-ply sock weight, one ply navy blue and one a lighter blue tweed.

I also listed an ear warmer/ski band/headband
in my HeartFeltFun shop. I hand knitted it from yarn I got from FeltStudiosUK on etsy... a 2-ply hand dyed, handspun Falkland wool in beige, tan, brown, sage green, light gray, and a little blue. I knitted in subtle diamonds and I think it is beautiful!