April 2

Oh, another day in paradise. Well, almost, at least it's Florida! Not that I'd know -- since I'm stuck inside.

Talya had her procedure on Monday and it went super well, which was a huge relief, until at least yesterday, when she was back at the hospital because she was peeing blood. Doctors believe it was a blood clot that she passed, so she didn't have to stay overnight. Meghan just called and said she had a rough night and didn't feel very good, but she's OK. We may have just gotten the miracle so many people have been praying for. And thank you for those prayers. Something's working and I'm inclined to think it's the prayers!

I have been quilting, but haven't taken any recent photos. These two are from Diane, from the class we took on Saturday from our friend Barb (who, incidentally, did a magnificent job on quilting my OBW -- I've cut the binding and plan to get that done this weekend). We finished piecing the D9Ps in class, and I've added the borders. I'm doing this one QAYG (my first with this method that Diane taught me) and I quilted half last night. A couple of wonky places I'm going to frog and redo (not quite sure how it got all bunched up in a couple places, but that's OK -- it's all a learning curve!), but overall, not too bad. Barb also quilted my 5 yard quilt (and that's gorgeous too), although it has to go back to her to finish since I hadn't made the back long enough. I stuck some fabric on it and have it in the trunk to give to her. She now has my Double Delight to quilt. I am still the most proud of that quilt. I surely posted a photo of it completed on here, now didn't I? If not, I will. She's out of town for the month of April, so I'm sure it will be May or June before I get that quilt back, but that's OK. Frankly I have no idea what I'm going to do with all these quilts, but I love making them and having them. Well, the D9P is for Talya. And I've collected all the shirts for the 7 shirt quilt for Ricky, and I've removed (and kept) all the buttons, so that's my next project.

Although maybe not. I need to get my sister's cell phone pouch done (still trying to figure out how to adjust the patterns I have to accommodate what she wants -- she's VERY picky), and make Mom either a black BFF bag or a walker bag -- I'm thinking a walker bag -- for Mother's Day. And I need to get some stained glass done for my bosses birthdays this summer, and something special for another friend of mine who might read this so I can't say what. Oh oh oh, and my Shakespeare in the Park. Yeah, that one is toward the top of the list too. Long list. And those are just the ones in some stage of actually being done!

OK, so I didn't go on the date. I canceled it. And yes, I'm on 3 different dating sites and no, I've not met anybody I'm even remotely interested in -- plus they'd cut into my quilty time!! I did get propositioned twice yesterday -- even old guys are like that. Ick. Don't worry about me -- I seem to be happy enough on my own and was even thinking this morning did I really even want a guy around -- God I'd have to shave all the time, and cook and clean and stuff. ICK!!!

I have a friend that I can almost guaranty is being scammed by one of those "romance scammers." He's followed every classic move, but another friend of hers and I cannot get her to even question it. He's promised her a beautiful home and to take care of her financially so she can retire. And she wants it so badly, that she believes everything. Even when he asked her for $3,000 because he got mugged (which I'm not supposed to know -- another friend of hers let that slip). It makes no sense that a wealthy man would need her to send him $3,000 whether he got mugged (or anything else) or not, but she just won't see it. She's in love. With a man she's never met. She's run all sorts of background checks and says he's clean, even though another friend found his exact name as a scammer and showed her. We try to tell her that just because he SAYS it's his name, it doesn't mean it IS his name. But I'm done -- I've offered to have her talk to my friend at the FBI, I've tried all I know to discourage her, but she just won't listen. I pray she doesn't get more than her heart hurt.

This has prattled on long enough. Trixye is at the vet having her teeth cleaned and I'll leave work about 4:30 to pick her up, then she'll be sleepy so it'll be a nice quiet night of quilting. I have lots of TV to catch up on. Saturday will be spent with Mom in the afternoon, after I stop off at Country Quilts & Bears to pay for the FMQ class I'm taking in June. Then that evening I'll be picking Judi up from the airport -- bless her heart, her mother passed away last week and they didn't find her for a couple of days. Judi found out on Sunday, on her birthday. So sad. We'd just been talking about our mothers the day before when I took her to a movie and dinner for her birthday. I know I'm dreading the day I have to deal with my own mother's demise.

OK, enough gloom and doom. All else is good, and I pray it is for everyone else too. God bless, and thank you God for the miracle of Talya's better health. Thank you.

Monday morning

Ahh, it's that time again. Time to be bored out of my mind at work. Oh yay. So here I am writing again.

This is a photo of my friend Arline and I -- I'm on the right for those of you who don't know me. Arline is 72 -- I should look so good! She's got all kinds of men chasing her. We went to see Frankie Avalon at this cool place where she hopes to live with this guy she met on a dating website -- it is positively gorgeous. Hopefully she'll get to retire and have a really wonderful life. She's a lovely lady and deserves it.

I did some FMQ on my Burger King Mystery Quilt yesterday -- I had been hand quilting it and I knew I'd never finish it. I did a horrible job -- nobody gets to see the back side of that quilt any time soon! But I'm going ahead with binding it (almost done, just one more side) so it'll be done done. Perhaps when I get in the mood again I'll take out the FMQ that's bad and either redo it or finish it by hand.

Tonight I want to start on my Pineapple quilt. I've cut a lot of strips, and a bunch of squares, but I need to assemble a block or two to see how it looks in reality, and then go from there. I had planned to work on it more yesterday, but got sidetracked with the BKMQ.

Talya has had a rough night -- back to the doctor for her again today -- she choked on vomit 3 times during the night and couldn't breathe. Luckily, Meghan heard her and jumped and got her all 3 times -- says she's never been more scared. Had to scoop it out of her throat to get her breathing. The pediatrician is going to be really angry with the hospital for not running the tests that she ordered on Friday anyway, and now this. Poor baby. And poor Meghan trying to keep up with everything. Luckily they did get the car fixed yesterday, and they are still trying to decide whether to buy a used car (which hasn't been going very well on finding one) or fixing up her car -- which is just a Daewoo and may not be worth putting the money into. Their decision, but yet more crap, ya know? It's exhausting to me -- and I'm not living it! I do remember those days, though, when it seemed it was one thing right after another. I'm grateful it's not like that for me any more, except through her.

Ricky's been in trouble at school but the meeting with the principal went well (she just sent me an email). On the way to school, a little boy fell off his bike with a grand mal seizure. People were trying to hold him down. Meghan has to deal with seizures all the time and, apparently, that's not the right thing to do, so she stopped, jumped out of the car (bad knee and all), left Ricky with Talya and got the kid comfortable until the EMTs got there. By that time the seizure was over. That's some kid I raised -- I wouldn't have known what to do! But living with it, she does. As she wrote in her e-mail, what ELSE can happen today?

Oh, and I have a date Wednesday night.

Frankie Avalon, etc.

Arline and I went to see Frankie Avalon tonight. Arline has met a guy on line, who appears to be quite wealthy, and she has fallen for him. There is a new development out in Wimauma called Lake Valencia, and they put on a huge cocktail party tonight, with wonderful food, and a show by Franie Valley. Arline is interested in perhaps buying a home there with this fellow. Frankie Avalon had his son with him playing drums, and the son of one of the Everly Brothers on guitar. Oh, it was corny and Frankie Avalon never really could sing, but it was fun, and he wasn't bad. I've certainly seen old acts that are still performing that didn't do nearly as good a show. Anyway, I had a great time. It prompted me to do some "housekeeping" on myself -- nails, toes, eyebrows waxed. I feel better about me today1

So Arline convinced me to join (OK, she didn't twist my arm or anything) this dating website. Not that anything's happening -- oh, I've gotten some interest, but nothing past that. I suspect that I won't -- seems you have to kind of put out the right "I'm available and interested and you are fascinating to me" vibe even on the Internet, and since I don't feel that way . . . it's sort of fun though. I suppose my "I never want to have to deal with a man again" stance has been softened a little bit. Don't get worried though, only just a little bit! And also don't worry -- I have even created a separate email account -- I'll be super extremely careful!

So next week is quilt class with Barb teaching. Somehow, the owner of the quilt retreat where we're going in July ran across my blog -- I asked her how and she said she was cleaning up old emails, etc, from when I inquired about their retreat and telling her about the one Diane and I went to (which was basically trying to sell us machines, and was expensive and we came home with nothing -- well, not quite true, I won a Baby Lock machine -- but otherwise, not). Their retreats are so much better, everyone says. I am so thrilled that Barb invited me to be her roommate, because I'd really wanted to go, but didn't want to go alone and not know anyone. Anyway, the owner got my application yesterday, saw that I am rooming with Barb, and then cleaning up her email box ran across that old email of mine and clicked on the link I used to have to this blog. In case you want to go to her retreat, which goes on all the time, here's the link to the website: www.besewcreative.com-- and you know I'll report on how good it was when I get back!

Anyway, a good day all in all. Baby was back at the hospital last night, but back home today. Her body just doesn't seem to be fighting any more, but Meghan assures me it's not life threatening -- scary though. Here's a new photo of her, and one of the sunbonnet I made for her (OK, I had to put it on SOMETHING!). I'll get that off in the mail this week, along with the soda tabs. Oh, you know to save soda tabs for her, don't you? Yeah, Ronald McDonald House collects them and gets $$ for them from the State of California. I know it's not much, but it makes me feel like I'm helping, even a little bit.

Have a great day and yes, it's the middle of the night. I just woke up on the couch and my sleep meds will take a few minutes to kick in, so . . . have a good one!

Billye

March 18 am

Here's a photo (al beit a lousy one!) of my Double Delight with borders. Now off to the long armer to be completed. This quilt pushed me past my ability level -- by a long shot! I'm starting to think I might actually be able to do this quilting thing -- fairly well. No major mistakes in this one -- that I can see yet anyway. I think I would've toned down some of the pinks a bit but then again, I kind of like them. This quilt is for my granddaughter, Natalya (who is OK right now by the way, thanks everyone -- her kidneys are working again -- hopefully they'll come up with a more long term answer here soon). I'll keep it though, until she's old enough to appreciate it. That could be a REALLY long time, since unless she's very different from her mother, she probably won't like anything home made. Although I did get a photo of Natalya from Meghan the other day -- and it happened to have a pillow I made for Meghan in it. So maybe she does use some of the stuff -- I hope so.

I had planned to work on the sunbonnet for Natalya last night (which I have basted), but I was really tired for some reason and did nearly nothing. So I want to do that, and then get started cutting for the Pineapple quilt I want to make for my niece, Mischa. That'll be a combination Christmas/Birthday present (probably for several years!). I'll try the quilt as you go method on it -- with the Double Delight I decided that I'd put so much of myself into it, I really want it professionally quilted.

I do have some great news. A fairly new friend of mine, Barb, who is also doing the long arm work on the OBW, the 5 yard quilt and soon on the DD, has asked me to be her roommate at a quilt retreat in July. I'm very excited to go -- we will be there 5 days, 2 days of classes -- and all the quilting we can possibly bear! What fun!! I'm also honored that she invited me to be her roommate. I had wanted to go, but didn't have anyone to go with, so had basically crossed it off my things of wanting to do. Now I get to go! Yay! But that means I have to stay out of the fabric stores and work on what I have planned. As a matter of fact, Barb is giving a class that Diane and I are taking on March 28th for a Disappearing 9 Patch (D9P) -- the fabric has been purchased and is in the car waiting for class -- I'll do QAYG on it as well. That quilt will be one for Natalya for now.

I promised myself I'd get my scraps under control before I started a new project, but . . . well, it'll have to be done in CONJUNCTION with a new project. I did pull a lot of scraps for the new Pineapple quilt, and will likely be pulling more. I have to decide on a color palette yet, but I know I'm going with greens -- maybe a little brown and some gold -- and of course the lights. The lights will probably be tone on tone white -- left overs from the backing on the Double Delight. TMI, huh? Yeah, I'm boring myself. So I'll sign off now. I hope every one is well and having a good day, despite the disturbing news going on in the world.

Hugs.

Double Delight

Still in construction phase -- I will do this one Quilt as You Go -- I think I'll just do stitch in the ditch since it's already so busy (and I don't want to ruin it with my not so great free motion quilting!). I'd use the regular quilt abbreviations, but on the off chance somebody in my family or someone not a quilter reads this, I thought I'd spell them out (not that they'll know what they mean anyway!). This quilt has been a true challenge -- even in construction. Seems like no matter how hard I've tried, I get something wrong with each seam -- last night was a disaster and I ended up frogging (ripping out - rip it, rip it) a lot. Some more minor frogging tonight, but the first two sections are stitched together. I think it's rather pretty, and since it's way beyond my skill level, I'm rather proud of it.

So, another friend of mine lost her job at our firm last Friday. That's so sad, and this time she was fired. I don't know what for -- she's been there almost two years, and the official word is that it "just wasn't a good fit." I hope she can either get unemployment or find another job quickly. She's a lovely girl, and I made her a purse for Christmas (albeit a bit late). It's just so sad.

The baby (Natalya) is still sick -- in and out of the hospital, back and forth to the doctors. Ricky had a scare with MRSA a few weeks ago too, and he was in the hospital for 3 days. My daughter is somehow holding up keeping the family together, the finances together, the baby as well as possible, getting her husband to work (since he can't drive due to epilepsy), Ricky to school, herself with a biopsy (no cancer or tumor thank God), and going days without sleep. I don't know how she's doing it, but I'm incredibly proud of her. If anyone had asked me a few years ago, I would've assured them it wasn't possible -- not my daughter. But boy has she grown into a young woman to be proud of (and reckoned with)!

Not much else to add -- will go to my first Guild meeting next Monday night with a new friend, Barb, who does most of her quilting by hand. Amazing quilts. She taught me how to do cathedral windows, so I've been doing those by hand while watching TV -- when I'm not working on the DD!

It's been forever again since I posted!

So here we are, February 12. The baby is still sick -- no surgery as yet -- more issues -- blood, seizures (maybe epilepsy), and still they keep waiting to figure out what to do. It's really hard. No way my daughter can go back to work with a sick baby -- so finances become an issue and, of course, her car died, and the company she bought it from is claiming she owes way more on it than she does. Luckily they'll be getting a nice tax refund and will go buy a car outright -- and the ripoff artists that sold her the one that was LITERALLY put together in spots with chewing gum (that's right, a business -- and she has it in writing from a reputable mechanic that he found CHEWING GUM holding parts of her new car (used but new to her) together). The company wouldn't make good on that either. I say, let them come repossess it. With the evidence she has, it shouldn't hurt her credit too badly.

I don't know what photos I've posted since last time, so I'll add some photos of some purses I've made here. I've also made wallets to match most, but haven't taken photos of those (not quite sure why). I like them very much, and it's nice to have matching wallets to my purses. The one I finished last night -- I'll never make another one of these -- too hard, bad pattern, hard to figure out. Oh, I suppose the next one would be easier, but . . . . well, we'll see. My friend doesn't want the pattern back, she hated it, so . . . . maybe someday.

This is a purse I made for a friend. I made another friend one that just about glows in the dark -- I think I took a photo of it and if I can find it at home I'll post it.

It would appear that although I'm not very busy today, I've been a lot busier at work and since my attorneys are the only two associates left in the real estate department, my job is probably safe. Notice I say probably!

Last weekend Diane and I went to the Sew Worth It retreat in Sarasota. When we signed up for it, we thought it was a quilting retreat. In fact, it was more an embroidery, embellishment, surging retreat. Very expensive (for me), but I did win a little Babylock Natalie sewing machine. They say it retails for $399.99, but I tried to buy a 1/4 inch foot for it, and that's $50!!! Outrageous. I'll use my moleskin guide and be just fine.

I continue to work on my Shakespeare in the Park. I've always known that will be a long term project. I need to do my taxes, and then I can start on Bonnie Hunter's Double Delight -- it was a mystery that I'd not planned to do, but I love the finished quilts so much that I just have to. It will be for my niece, Mischa. She loves the things I make, unlike some other members of my family who shall go unnamed. Those members won't be getting much made by me any more either! Just gift certificates. Too much time, trouble, expense and work for things to be tossed into closets and not used.

I met a new friend on line that lives near me. I'm hoping we become fast friends and can quilt together. That would be lovely!

All else is OK. I feel fine and that's good news -- I'd been battling depression for a while -- the baby, layoffs at work, the economy, my impending divorce (yes, I'm going to do it, even though I dread the paperwork -- sad that the paperwork is the part I dread, isn't it?). I have new photos of the baby, so if anyone wants to see them, let me know -- my email is billyevitag@aol.com and I'll send you a slide show. Can't attach it here (or I don't know how to).

Hope everyone has a good day. I'm going to try to be better about blogging. I know I'm not getting photos of all the things I'm making, and that's not good for my record keeping! I want to know 10 years from now what I made this year, and hopefully will have improved my skills by then.

It's been awhile

I've just not felt like blogging for quite a while, and I can't really tell you why. To the left is a photo of the first two Shakespeare in the Park blocks that I did. Since then, I've done several more. I love, love, love this pattern, but I have to admit, the cutting gets a little tedious. Well, really quite tedious. And I find that I've cut fabrics into pieces for blocks they don't go into. Oh well, perhaps I'll incorporate them into borders or something. I'm planning on a queen size, but I like a VERY generous queen, so an extra border with some extra blocks in colors (well, the same colors, but for instance, stars with the snail trail fabrics and creams/whites, which I hadn't planned to use in the quilt) might look nice, or they can go on the back or something. The actual sewing on these blocks is pretty easy, and I must say the cutting directions and trimming the points before you sew makes things line up much better than mine have ever lined up before. For these first two blocks shown above, I had not read all those instructions and did not have my points snipped before sewing, and it shows. I'll take more photos of more blocks soon -- and I hope to have enough sewn to begin to show the layout of the pattern soon. What I'm doing right now is actually cutting and laying out the blocks on my cutting table, then picking them back up and pinning them together in a pile for the pieces of the block -- then I can sit down and just sew. It really does take longer to cut than it does to sew!

Some of you may know that my granddaughter has been very sick since her birth -- she has some congenital defects which will eventually require surgery. We had been on pins and needles -- her pediatricians had really put scares into us. But she saw a quadruple board certified pediatric doctor on 12/31, who says that yes, she will need surgery, but not right this minute, and although the mortality rate is high on that particular surgery, he's not even sure that's the one she's going to need or if it's really as bad as the other doctors seem to think. He'll run his own tests the end of January, and we'll go from there. Meghan hopes to be able to go back to work about then -- she had her disability extended because we were told that surgery was going to be necessary probably on January 1 -- when in fact none has happened and may not for a year. So she's staying home with the baby -- otherwise she might be accused of fraud if she went back to work, and that would not be good. She's looking forward to returning to work though.

I've made several purses and a couple of wallets to match my purses (and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the wallets -- tons of pockets and places for all my credit cards, a zippered part for $$, clear pockets for my ATM card and driver's license, a space for my checkbook -- and it matches my purses!), but I've been lazy about taking photos. I made several gifts for Christmas -- purses, Mirandas, makeup bags, shaving kits, but didn't get photos of those either before I gave them away. I've been quilting away, but for whatever reason, just not blogging or photographing, which is pretty unusual for me -- I really do try to keep a log of everything I've made (quilt or stained glass) or painted. I need to get back to it. Another thing on my agenda is to get my scraps under control. I have sorted into color groups -- basically -- now I need to get out my cutter and make some usuable strips and bricks out of them. That's once I get a bunch of other purses and quilts done. Or while I'm doing it. I spent a half hour this morning before work cutting for a purse -- I set a timer -- I think if I did some cutting every morning rather than sit on the computer, I could get a lot done.

Speaking of work, I'm calling yesterday "Black Tuesday." The law firm that I work for is pretty large (85 attorneys, 220 (approx.) employees. Yesterday, the girl next to me and 11 other people were laid off. Unprecedented. I know these are unprecedented times, but OMG. I was lucky, I was spared. Working in real estate, even in the legal field, is slow -- super slow. So for now, I will quilt with the fabrics I have, maybe buy a tiny bit here and there, start looking for "shirting" (as Bonnie Hunter says) in the thrift stores and garage sales -- reuse and repurpose. Frankly I have enough fabric to last me all year or more, even if I sew every single day. God knows I pray that this situation turns around -- and soon. I know I am lucky -- those people worked just as hard, if not harder, than me and were just as talented I'm sure. Why I was spared? I just don't know. But I do feel bad. Really bad. Really sad. Me and thousands of other people these days. I am counting my blessings, hoping for the best and trying to prepare myself for the worst.