The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen!

I finished a quilt! I finished a quilt! So what, you say? Well, it's been years since I actually completed a quilt project that wasn't small enough to hide in my purse. I had called myself Queen of the UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) but I now will have to relinquish the crown. Maybe now I'll call myself Queen of Everything (acknowledgment to Mary Engelbreit here.

When my mom offered to ship gifts to my sister and nephew if I had them ready by today, I thought about going shopping. However, I was inspired by my friend and neighbor who is making all of her Christmas gifts and getting them all finished prior to having surgery on the 17th. She inspires me often. So I dived into the crate of UFOs and came up with a sofa-sized one-block quilt top I made as sample for a class I taught years ago. It still needed borders, quilting and binding, but I was sure I could knock that out in a few hours.

Oh, how the proud are humbled. I managed to make the quilting more complicated than necessary by doing in-the-ditch quilting, 1/4 inch outline quilting and decorative stitching. Then, trying a time saving tip using white glue to baste together binding, I unintentionally used 'fusible' glue, making permanently fused stiff seams in my binding. I can promise you they'll never un-sew! I ended up spending about 12 hours total finishing this quilt.

On the plus side, I was lucky to have enough fabric for the borders in my unsold fat-quarter stash. And I got creative in my binding fabrics by using 2 1/2" wide strips from my recently cut strip stash. Rather than sew on a label on the back, I inked a Christmas greeting with a Micron .03 pen right on the front of the quilt. It's barely noticeable within the 1/4 inch outline quilting.

I'm so happy to have this project finished. It lays flat (mostly) and came out square (relatively) without my trying to hard. And the fleece fabric quilts beautifully, showing the quilting on the back in relief.

While searching for an image to use for Queen of UFOs, I encountered a lovely blog from a quilter from the Netherlands who makes the extra special effort to write in English. Brava for her! Take a look at her wonderful projects at Dutch Blue.

P.S. I promise to post a picture soon. I'm waiting for the sunlight to move across the living room floor so that I can take a picture without a bright spot in the middle.

Attention, please!

May I have your attention for an important annoucement! (drumroll please)...........
My scrap bin is EMPTY!

The cleaning-out process was inspired by my quilt buddy Cat and her daughter Beth who had come over to peruse the bin for scrap quilts they were making. Watching them have such fun going through the goodies reminded me of how much fun it was to collect all those scraps. So I decided to start going through them myself and breaking them down into workable parts.

I cut 10" and 9" squares out first for big block quilts. After that, I cut one each of a 5" and/or 6" square for my charm square collections. Then, from longer pieces, I cut strips 2 1/2" wide (jelly rolls) down to 1" wide. Narrower strips and selvages got thrown into a ziploc bag. All others scraps were set aside to die cut into 4" and 2" squares or equilateral triangles.

As I dug through the box, it was great fun to remember where the fabrics came from. "Ah, here's Cheo's Spiderman shorts." "These are left from the first block-of-the-month class that I taught with my friend Patti at Hancocks." "These are from the bag of scraps that I won at our guild's Chinese Auction." "Here's the leftovers from Laurel's Crazy Strip class." "Here's a big chunk from that pink, blue & purple Western shirt I bought for Pedro that he wouldn't wear." and "These are all from the Dollar Bag Day at the thrift shop."

One of the greatest pleasures of a scrap quilt or a charm quilt are just these; touching the fabrics and recalling the special memories that go along with each piece. It may be nothing more than, "Oh, this was a great deal at the quilt shop." or "I bought this on that Road Trip to Tampa." These are good memories to be sure; to me the even more special are "This hot pink print is from the dress I was wearing the first time I felt my baby Cheo move inside me" and "This Looney Tunes print is from the shorts and vest outfit Cheo wore on his first day of first grade."

Now my 32 gallon scrap box is empty, waiting to be filled with fresh new fabric or UFOs or orphaned blocks - who knows. I've enjoyed the pleasure of all the memories passing under my ruler and rotary cutter as they transformed into the building blocks of new projects. I look forward to the new memories yet to be formed.

Waxing Philosophical

I had a TP emergency in the bathroom today. I'm one of those people who likes to have something to read while I'm in the bathroom and I was reading a book from the series "Conversations with God". This particular passage touched on the ideas of being One with God and the nature of how that appears in daily life. It also touched on the quote, "Ask and you shall receive." I set the book down and reached for the TP and there just wasn't enough there for my needs. I frantically looked back over my shoulder to see if an extra roll was on the tank and saw nothing. Since I was alone in the house, no one was going to come to my rescue.
The thought popped into my head, "Well, if I had total faith, a roll of toilet paper would just appear." A very facetious thought, that. I looked back over my shoulder one more time, and there it was - a new roll of toilet paper!
Now I'm assuming that the roll of toilet paper was there the whole time and, in my panic, I just didn't look back far enough to see it. But even so, aren't the smallest of miracles sometimes the most marvelous.

The Excitement of Travel

Today is our third day in New York City. Day one was a travel day, which is inevitably tiring, but we still managed to pull off a hike around central Manhattan, seeing Radio City Music Hall, the big retailers on Fifth Avenue including Macy's and Bloomie's, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Yesterday we saw the Yankee's victory parade from Battery Park, shopped a little, went to Staten Island on the ferry and managed to get stuck there due to a riot at the ferry terminal on the Manhattan side. Eventually back to Manhattan, on to Ground Zero, then subway and bus to Greenwich Village for my birthday dinner at Veselka, an Ukrainian restaurant that's been there for 44 years. After that we rode the bus around Greenwich Village and the East Village, hopped off to change buses and ended up back on the subway for the trip back to Queens.

So, are you worn out yet? I am. Today we stayed in Queens (today two of the places I wanted to go to in Manhattan are closed for the Jewish sabbath). We went to Jamaica Center, a shopping area much like a glorified flea market, with lots of cheap shoes, clothing and jewelry, mostly faux in some way, but we found a few bargains. No place to eat, though, except McDonald's and Subway, and we have vowed to stay away from chain restaurants during this trip. So, back to Queens Boulevard and a tiny little hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant for General Tso's and Garlic chicken. Mm-mmm.

I love this neighborhood. It's called Briarwood, and is a combination of small businesses, attached multi-family homes, skinny little single family homes and apartments. The streets are tree lined and quiet. It hardly seems like New York. Of course, our hotel is on the main thoroughfare and not as quiet, but a great deal for us.

We got back to our room and, sadly, it was not made up, so I tucked down here to the business center to blog while our bed gets made and towels changed out. I am worn out and its only 4:45 p.m. My dogs are barkin' as my dad would say.

Here's a secret - don't tell Pedro! A few days ago, a cute little dachsund puppy was born with Minnie Mouse ears in black on her back, and brown spots on white. She just happens to be designated for me in 8 weeks. A little spotted long-haired doxie!

Almost out of time, $2.00 for 20 minutes, so I'd better hit PUBLISH and get this posted.

Happy Today

Today I've made a decision to be happy. Let's face it, I am addicted to anxiety. Worrying about my son at college, my backlog of work, the never-ending household chores, my relationships with family, friends and acquaintances keeps me on the treadmill of anxiety. Just for right now, I'm stepping off the treadmill and declaring, "I'm happy."

I have a cushy job. Let's face it, how many people get to set their own hours, roll out of bed, and stroll into their office (in my jammies, if I want). So, maybe it's not my dream job. But it's valuable work.

I have a husband that still adores me after 20 years. Not every minute or even every day, but often enough, he looks at me with caring and desire. How lucky am I!

I have two amazing sons. My oldest is on a wonderful journey of self-discovery, is polite, handsome, smart and kind. My youngest shares his days with me and fills my world with his thoughts and ideas, bringing a unique perspective from his Asperger's mind.

I have a beautiful home with space and color and filled with the things that I love, and then some. I am very blessed to have plenty and enough again to share.

One of my very favorite things to do, play with color and texture, is fulfilled by my collection of fabrics. My younger son noticed me cutting scraps into strips and squares the other day and commented, "That makes you fell peaceful, doesn't it." You're darn right!

So, just for a few minutes, let me stop grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw, squinching my shoulders and forgetting to breathe. Right this minute, I am happy.

Who Do You Know?

(Image Copyright Sharon Lam)
When do we ever tell “the whole truth” to any one person? Bits of our past, our hopes and dreams, are scattered about, confided piecemeal to our friends, co-workers, therapists, even strangers. When can we ever truly say, “I really know him.”?

Last night, sharing our mutual feelings of longing for our son, I discovered something new, something big, about the time my husband came to the U.S. His original plan was to accompany his sister across the border, see her off on her journey to Florida, and then go back home. 23 years later, he’s still here.

How could I have missed this? How did this tiny little detail that is so absolutely crucial to our life and present circumstances never have come up in conversation before?

Isn’t Cheo’s present longing for a best friend actually a longing for someone to know him, to share his hopes with, to see the whole of him, and not just that face he presents to the casual world? I absolutely understand that longing.

PBS is a Major Distraction

No, not Public Broadcasting System, but PaperBack Swap. I signed up for this free service a little over a month ago and its been more than a little distracting. It works like this: you go through your bookshelf, pull out books you want to get rid of, you post them on you PBS Bookshelf, other members request them from you, and you send them off and receive 1 trading point for each completed transaction.

Initially I thought this would be a quick and easy way to get rid of my excess of paperback books. The thought of trading books I'd read for those that I want was just too tempting. But then, after an initial surge of requests for my newly posted books, I stopped getting requests. So, after a little trial and error, I discovered that I could purchase points and get the books I wanted that way. Hey, wait a minute! Wasn't I supposed to be getting rid of books?

Here's what I've learned - For the cost of shipping one paperback book from my bookshelf, $2.02, I get a fresh copy of a (much desired) book that would have cost me $7.00 or more from Books-A-Million or Amazon. That's a good deal. And I can purchase a point for $3.45, which is still half the cost of buying new. However, if I shop garage sales or library book sales, I can purchase more commonly available books for as little as 25 cents each. So, I save my points for those books which are hard to find used (like those of favorite authors Charlaine Harris or Piers Anthony) and that I plan to keep. Otherwise, I request books from the library.

In the meantime, I still have a box of books in my office. Anyone interested in a trade?