Stop. Rewind. Start Over.

Well, the verdict came in from the ortho guy, and it wasn't good.  The quick care PA got it wrong.  It's not the best place to break a fibula, it's the worst.  And so, the news is 4-6 weeks - best case scenario - in a non-weight bearing cast.  Lucky me!

The attached sandal is to keep the cast clean, should my foot drag. 

Oh, and I'm supposed to keep it elevated...above my hip.  Terrific!  So much for my short term goals in the quilting department.

The good news is that the "kids" return tomorrow for round 2 of holiday celebration.  They say they will make my house handicap-friendly, as all of my travels are currently conducted via wheelchair or crutches.  The one item they mentioned that lit me up was to fix a sewing area that is easily accessible.  Now that definitely sounds like a good idea!

In the meantime, my MIL said something about the bone knitting.  (It's cracked in 3 places, but not broken through.)  Knitting!  That's a GREAT idea!  I have a poncho/shawl thing that I started knitting three or four years ago, but I always gravitate towards sewing and quilting and away from knitting.

My youngest son's girlfriend is bringing lunch by this afternoon.  When she gets here, I think I'll ask her to wade through my "studio" and see if she can get the project off of my shelf.  Then maybe, just maybe, I will feel more productive.  Goals are good!  yay!

I Visited the Vendors

I wish I could figure out Blogger. Sometimes the photos load perfectly. Sometimes they do not. Tonight was one of those times when most of my pictures ended up wacky. Now I'm growly. And I had a perfectly equitable day too...In fact, I had a most excellent day, thankyouverymuch.

I went here:

...to the quilt show sponsored by the Cotton Patch Quilt Guild of Bakersfield, CA.

I had every intention of taking pictures, really I did, but I got distracted. There were so many beautiful quilts to see and so many vendors to visit, I just dragged my camera around with me for the exercise. I didn't take a single picture inside the show. oh well.

But I did go shopping.

I visited my favorite yarn vendor and asked her what I could make with this that I would finish. Can you believe everyone in her booth laughed at me? I was serious. ;) I already have 2 knitting projects in various stages of completion. I don't need a third. But I couldn't leave this rayon there, it was TALKING to me.

These little packets were also giving me an earful, so they also came home with me.

My favorite book vendor was there, so I bought a bit of reading material.

Okay, so it was more than a bit...

And Janet Farris was there, with her beautiful hand-sculpted jewelry. I bought these flower beads. Don't ask me what I'm going to do with them. They were talking to me!!! ;)

The last "booth" I visited was "Country Store." I guess it's a clean your closet booth sponsored by the guild? There were all kinds of abandoned craft materials behind the drapes. I chose these two bargains. On the left we have some yellow virgin wool for crewel. (I have a piece of crewel work that I did years- decades - ago. Moths ate some of the yellow. I'm hoping this will be enough to replace it. For 5 cents, it was worth chancing it.)

And who doesn't need a bag full of jingle bells? You never know. They always seem to come in handy. And they usually cost $1 for 6, not 75 cents for dozens.

And that's all I have for you from the show. The quilts were WONDERFUL. Bakersfield has some VERY talented quilters! Congratulations to all of my friends who found those lovely rosettes and ribbons hanging on their quilts. Awesome!!

Bad Cat, etc.

You've met Edgar before. He's beautiful...and he's bad.

For Christmas my sister knit me a BEAUTIFUL pair of mittens. I LOVE these mittens. I wore them to church on Sunday. Edgar found them Tuesday night. He loves them too. In fact, he loves them more than I do. Impossible? Not really. HE tried to eat them!

Not only did he eat a chunk out of the tree trunk, but on the reverse side he nibbled the hem and made another smaller hole. ARG!!

While I admire his taste in mittens, I do NOT admire his TASTING my mittens!!!

Thankfully my sister has volunteered to take a look to see what she can do. Dr. Carla to the rescue! I sent her a picture of Edgar (she's also a cat person). She responded that he is "magnificient!" (yes, he is) and that, btw, the mitten pattern is called "Deep in the Woods." She went on to ask if Edgar is deep in the doodoo. yeah, but it's hard to stay mad at him for long. He's the best specimen of cat that we have in our house, no offense to Charlie, Malcolm, or Hecate...

As with the rest of California, it's been wet around here. But it hasn't been as wet as we were warned it would be. In my opinion, our local storms have been quite orderly, taking turns and drying out in between.

Yesterday I drove east, then south, to Porterville for a meeting. I was the one who kept slowing down and picking up my camera. When I first turned onto Caldwell, I saw this:

The RR crossing and lines are distracting I know, but they give you a sense of how close we are to the Sierras. Ten miles south, and the power lines are now in a distance. The storm is coming in.

Finally, I blindly hit zoom and snapped. There were a couple of peaks in the background that were blinding white with snow. I could look at this every day...if I wanted to drive every day. I don't, and so I post my pics on the blog, where I can look at them whenever I want. (You can click on the pics to enlarge them.)

In the middle of all this rain, our Landscaper's crew has been coming each morning to work until it gets too wet. They've pulled out five trees and the majority of plant life. Yesterday they ripped out the lawn. NOW I can tell that they've done something. If the rain stops, I should have a whole new yard by the end of next week. Be prepared for pictures! :)

Playing Hooky

I know, I know. I have all this quilt stuff I'm supposed to be doing. Today we're going to an Art Faire AND to a Civil War Reenactment. And in the meantime, I haven't been quilting, I've been


shh!! Don't tell anyone!!! :)

October!!

As I fought the crowds in Costco yesterday, I wondered where they came from. Then it hit me. It was October first! And if it's October, it's time to determine an October Step. This is going to be a toughie. As of now, I don't have one. I'm going to have to search through my projects and find one that I can realistically meet. Unless, of course, I decide that unquilting the rafting quilt should be my step. Actually, it SHOULD be my step, but it doesn't sound terribly gratifying. That's why it's so perfectly qualified.

Congratulations to all who completed their September steps. I know Pat finished two, how about you, Kay? Kristin? Did you meet your goals? I still can't believe that I met mine so early in the month. Deadlines are the BEST motivators!

But back to October. I have so many quilts-for-hire waiting for my attention, it's hard to know when I will have time to quilt for myself. The current QFH is so large, it's taking its toll on my wrists and elbows. I do need to take a few breaks from manhandling it, even though I'm only putting in 2-3 hours each day.

My calendar says I'm quilt-booked at least for the next 2-3 weeks, and I need to write that article, and I have a zillion things I should be doing. So what did I do? I started knitting.


I know, I know, call me crazy. My quilt muscles were tired but I didn't want idle hands...yep. One more thing to keep me out of trouble. ;)

I Found The Yarn!

The end-of-show reality has set in. It's taken root. It's in my house. And in my garage. The last of the load has been removed from the van and here it is - not in the least bit organized compared to two weeks ago.

You can see the seats to the van at the edge of the garage. This morning we put them back in the van. Yay. Small victories.

But then there's the sewing dump. yep. Two weeks of dump 'n' run makes for one big mess.

Since #1 son is home for a couple of days, today he's been on the computer. When he's working, I can't. yay. Instead of another day of staring at the computer screen, I focused on the sewing dump. It's still a dump, but now I could actually sew in it if I needed to. I even vacuumed.

And guess what I found when I moved the quilts off of the chair? I found the yarn! Isn't it gorgeous? I can see a poncho made from this, to wear this winter. It's supposed to be two throws. What do you think? Maybe? Maybe not. Either way, I liked the colors and they're mine, all mine.

Oh! And I started on my April step yesterday, I might just get it done!

Happy Valentine's Day

Wow. Blogger couldn't take a tipping day off, could it? sigh. Well, here's Pete's tipsy Happy Valentine...maybe they are just underscoring the poor quality of the photo? I took 6 shots, in various lighting, none of them came out clear.

Up in the corner it says, "I Love Moo." Yeah, I do corny, what can I say? ;)


Yesterday he walked in and placed these on the counter. I think they're for me. I put them in the living room. Aren't they beautiful? big smile.


Lest you think I've been doing nothing this week - which pretty much sums up what I've been doing - last night I cast off the afghan that I began back in November. It's not terribly large, but it's warm and it's pretty. I just need to spend an hour or so, adding fringe. Right now the fringe is looking pretty skimpy. I think I have enough leftover yarn to fluff it up a bit.


And finally, I've quilted the new/old block for the Valley Oak Quilt Guild logo. Let's hope that is is acceptable to the powers that be, and that it works for the website. Yes, I need a better photo. I've been working with digital cameras for almost 3 years now, and I have yet to learn how to take a picture that does not distort straight lines. (this quilt is absolutely perfectly square. sigh) It is the bane of my quilting existence. How I WISH that digitals took images like film cameras. My film camera was one of my bestest buds. ah well. That's progress...


Hopefully I will be a better blogger next week and do something worthy of note. Until then, Happy Valentine's Day, one and all!!

This and That

This week I've been invigorated to get into the sewing cave and get some work done. The plan when I enter the room is to do machine quilting, but that is not what's been happening in there. Instead, new fabrics are being taken to the laundry room, washed, dried, pressed and added to the stash. Old projects are being looked at: Should I stash this away again? Or just finish it?

The answer to the pillowcase question was, "Just finish it!!"

I bought this border print a few years back, thinking that it would be perfect for pillowcases to go with my winter quilt. Every fall I pull the fabric out, every spring it goes back into the stash. Not this year! I started cutting. hmmm. I thought I had enough for four pillowcases, there was only enough for three. I made two. It took less than an hour to finish them both. (How hard is it to sew a French seam and turn under the edge? I could do it with half my brain tied behind my back. ;)

The color isn't true, but it gives you the general idea. What do you think? Was it worth an hour?

My evenings are usually filled with some sort of quilting handwork, but not lately. I have been lured to "the darkside," and here is the evidence. This is my knitting basket, holding the throw kit that I bought at the Handweaver's craft fair.


The throw continues to grow. Here is a peek inside the bag, to see how much yarn I have left. It almost looks like the stripes are going to end up being horizontal, rather than vertical. oops. I guess that means I'm going to have to trim those tails that were going to masquerade as fringe...


Here is my progress. I think I've made some sort of mistake, because the pattern went one way for the first half of the throw and has now reversed. oops. Maybe it's fluffy enough not to be noticed. REAL knitters will not be allowed to examine it in person. ;)

And that's what I've been doing, instead of what I SHOULD be doing. Other things have also been finished, but they are stashed away for the next 36 days...

Tempted by "The Darkside"

My sister knits. I used to knit, when our daughter was a wee lass. I loved making little sweaters for her, and she seemed to like to wear them. But when I caught the quilting bug, knitting became history.

I still love hand-knit items, and imagine myself making them. I don't, but I am tempted. My sister has tried to call me back "from the darkside," I in turn, try to lure her to quilting. But we're each smitten with our own calling. There's nothing I like more than something handmade, especially something made well.

Today was the annual Handweaver's Guild show and sale in Exeter. I heard the call and went. (I apologize for the poor quality pictures. You can click on them for a better view...)

The one thing about this show is that it is in a building that is VERY poorly lit. I couldn't tell colors to save my life. Is that blue or black? pink or red? Would that rug look good in my house or ghastly? There was no way to know, it was a guessing game. You can tell by the pictures how dark it was, oh well.

Did that stop my shopping? Heavens no, are you kidding? ;) I found some handwoven dish towels for my kitchen. I wanted green, there were none to be found. But since I've got grapes and cranberry accents in the drapes and wallpaper, I thought these might work.


And then there are toys for the kitties. These felted balls cost less than plastic cat toys from PetSmart. And they jingle! Such a deal, such a deal! (As I paid for them, someone complained that I had "taken all the cat toys." I didn't take them all, I just took the best ones. And I didn't take them right away. I looked at them, played with them, and then walked around the room twice before I went back and bought them. Same with the other goodies. If things were still there when I came back to the booth, well then surely I must need them!)


And finally, I was tempted once again by the promise of an "easy knit." This bag of reds looked luscious,
and the pattern is "simple knit and purl." Well, since I can do both, and she swears it's a "no brainer for when you're exhausted in front of the TV," I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Now I've just got to buy myself some knitting needles...


In the meantime, while we're away, the cat will play....


or nap where he is LEAST welcome. This would be on my pillow. After the flash, he glared at me then covered his eyes with his paw and wished me mal-intent.**

**interesting. I know I've heard that phrase/word before, but apparently it is not one? Perhaps I should just say that he gave me the evil eye and I could sense him simultaneously cursing me for disturbing him and gloating with the knowledge that since my pillow was already furry I'd leave him be. and so I did.

sigh. To be at the mercy of such a creature. Why do I allow it? Nevermind, I don't want to know. ;)