A Whine... not much quilting

Okay, when I sounded upbeat in my last post, that was before driving all the way to Canal Flats and back for the fifth time in 5 months. I am exhausted... too exhausted to move. I'm even too tired to make myself some breakfast which I desperately need because I haven't been eating much for the past four days and certainly not eating well at all in that time.

Whoops... off to the Kitsap Quilt Show in Bremerton. (Back again) Quilt Show was the previous day so we missed it and instead went shopping. ;-))

We left the island on Wednesday the 18th and missed the 10:25am ferry because we had to go to UHaul and pick up a trailer. Seemed easier than trying to find a trailer in Canada that would have allowed us to take it over the border. Missing the ferry should have been a sign that all was not going well although we had a great breakfast at a close by restaurant... we had to wait over an hour for the next ferry... which we did. This was setting us up to arrive in CF around 8 - 9pm... late. Uneventful trip until we got just south of Bonner's Ferry in ID where the Jeep suddenly wasn't behaving properly. Steering was difficult and it was overheating... ready to explode so we pulled over and called AAA. Someone decided to shoot off their automatic machine gun... maybe to scare off visitors... but then a cop came by to check us out in the pitch dark and cold and he said many people had guns in the area and it wasn't unusual to hear gunfire, even automatic. The tow truck came... shout out to Jacob's Auto Repair... and towed the Jeep to an auto repair shop and us to the Log Inn motel where we stayed for the night. Jeep was ready... belt replaced... by 9:30am and we were on the road again. Arrived in CF about 1pm which didn't give Liza much time to pack up what she wanted to take with her. She left lots behind but at least she's gone from that place and won't ever have to return. Shawn would be proud of her for taking that gigantic step, I'm sure.

So, the time has been spent buying furniture because we didn't bring any of the old stuff and making the new place feel like home. Liza is doing a good job of doing that and Laura is going to move in in a week or so.

Here now, but back again!

My dd has moved into the cottage with her big doggies. My gdd is still staying at her uncle's house so she'll have internet access. Typical teen, huh? So my dd and I will be driving back to their home in CF to get some things they left behind. Leaving Wednesday and returning Friday. Oh well.... this is my life.... back and forth, back and forth. I don't really mind... what else do I have to do?

Life throws a fastball...

Got a phone call on February 5th from my dd, who was having serious problems trying to maintain her lifestyle in the small town she lives in - Canal Flats BC. She has two dogs who have been of immense comfort to her since she lost her husband last September. The dogcatcher knocked on her door and said that he was going to take one of her dogs in to have him euthanized because he had scared someone in the neighborhood. Didn't bite anyone or even attack anyone.... just barked at them from his own porch. I flew there on the 6th and drove her, her teenage dd, the two dogs and one cat out to my area. It was a 12-hour day to get there, changing planes in Vancouver, then a 10-hour drive back home.

In the past week, I have had the company of my dd and the two big dogs; my kitties are coping well even though their food is gobbled up fast if they don't finish it all... no more leaving a little for later around those big guys. The new kitty is over at my other dd's house and the teenager is set up at her uncles' house. The whole family broken apart... for now. We have found a nice cottage pretty far up the island but it has a water view, a large yard and three lovely bedrooms with a large workshop in the back. It's perfect... but I haven't heard if they can move in because they're still showing the house. Waiting is now my middle name.

My dental work is almost complete but I'm still seeing the dentist because for some reason, I have ulcers in my mouth ... and swollen glands in my neck. I take methotrexate which depresses my immune system.

John Lennon was right

An article in the NYTimes opinion section today told me that "change is coming but maybe not for poor women". Read it and weep for poor women:

.... it was distressing to see President Obama strip Medicaid coverage of family planning services out of the House economic package at the last minute in what turned out to be a futile effort to secure Republican support for the huge recovery bill.

Under current law, states wanting to use Medicaid money for family planning services, including cancer screenings, must obtain a waiver from Washington, as some 27 states have done. The modest provision that was cut would have done away with the cumbersome process. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the measure would provide coverage to 2.3 million women by 2014 and save $200 million over five years.

The Medicaid family planning provision would reduce the number of abortions by helping an estimated half-million women avoid unplanned pregnancy, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute. The knee-jerk opposition of House Republicans was but the latest sign of G.O.P. insensitivity to women’s rights and health. President Obama should no longer placate it.

I do hope that women will not be left out of the change that is supposed to come. Back to quilting......

Women's Names

My paternal grandmother's name was Lucinda Young Burrows. My maternal grandmother's name was Caroline Jane York Cory.

As a quilter, we are a breed that makes history with our work. At least that's what we intend when we make something with our hands. Yet, few women can evidently name their grandmother and just imagine how many could not name their g-grandmothers.

I thought this quilter's blog at White Lotus Quilting said it quite well. We need to stop making women invisible. Do you know your grandmother's name?

Got a new book...

I'm a sucker for buying books online. I found the most recent one on a quilting website; it's called Enduring Grace and it's about the Shelburne Museum Collection founded by Electra Webb in Vermont. She was a collector of Early American quilts but enlarged the collection into all things early American including 9 houses which she had taken apart and reconstructed on her 8 acre parcel. Each house contains a part of her collection. The website indicates that the museum has been enlarged even more since the book was written. To me, that sounds like a trip I would like to take... to see a museum that large... and full of memorabilia going back to the start of the country.

At the same time, I could visit the Bennington Museum in Vermont that holds the beautiful Dear Jane quilt of which I made a replica. It has the largest collection of Grandma Moses paintings. I would be in heaven - quilts and paintings!

I saw Milk today with Sean Penn as Harvey Milk. What an era the '70s were... and what a fight gay people had to ensure they had the same rights as all other Americans. Penn was excellent as Milk and I will now be rooting for him to win the Academy Award. I lived in the San Francisco area in the late '60s and there was a hippy movement happening at that time. When the gay movement started there, I was back in Los Angeles but I remember all that happened very well. Who could forget the Twinkie Defense that Dan White, the murderer, put up. I wasn't unhappy when he committed suicide years later. Enough of the movie reviews but I heard about two more good movies that I would like to see... The Namesake and The Visitor and I'll be seeing those in the next few days. Don't know that I will review them here, though. I have yet to see Frost/Nixon which I really want to see because I like Frank Langella... who knows, maybe I'll change my Oscar favorite pick after seeing it.

My new quilt is not coming along. I'm so bad at choosing fabrics and though my local quilt shop helped me, I still am not crazy about putting yellow in that quilt. In the first two pictures, I am trying to see if a bright green or the purple paisley might look good with the blue and red of the feathers that go around the stars... but I'm not crazy about either one of them.

I want green, but a light lime green! So I ordered fabric online and I'm waiting for it to get here before I complete that part of the block that I'm supposed to have finished for January.

Oh well, I've got some of it paper-pieced.... boring! I had to stop cutting out all the little pieces and just start sewing.... I like to just hack off a piece of fabric and sew it on, then cut off what I don't need... it's faster. I really dislike precutting but I'll probably do some precutting and some hacking. I hope this quilt turns out looking all right. I'm a little worried about it. Here's one reason.....






At least the top of the Depression quilt is now ready for sandwiching. I'll get around to that in the next few days while I'm waiting for that new fabric to show up.







Oh, and I started my new Anita Brookner novel... Hotel du Lac. The last one - The Bay of Angels - was exquisite in its' simplicity; she writes as if she knows you will understand the character without over explaining. I wish I could write like that.

A Double Wedding Ring 'Tute'

I found this great tutorial on Webshots that was done by CJ Spensley. She was kind enough to post the slideshow of how to assemble a Double Wedding Ring quilt. I have many, many parts done to make this particular quilt; it was to be a gift for my daughter and her new husband... obviously I haven't completed it. I'm not sure that she will want it after the events of last Fall. One day, I'll ask her... but not until she elects to move from the house they shared.

As you can see, it's a rather complicated piecing for the DWR.... lots of curves to be sewn. But I fully intend to finish the quilt one day ... maybe this year. Right now, I'm hand-quilting the Dear Jane, piecing the new quilt and have yet to sandwich and machine-quilt the Depression quilt. I've decided to put a soft flannel on the back of that one and I have to choose a color or pattern that will look good... and feel good.