Fabric!

 

After every big project, it's only normal for there to be a letdown. I've had two big highs lately - the renovation of my bathroom and Julie's visit - and I'm experiencing the letdown. I can't seem to get much of anything going. Or I can start, but I can't seem to generate the steam to continue any one project.

Let's face it, I've expended a LOT of energy in the first part of the year and I've run out of "gas." I need time to recharge. So I've been doing a lot of resting, reading (more on that in a bit) and not too much else.

I did, however, do a little bit of fabric shopping. I've got a pink bird quilt I'll need backing and borders and binding for, and there was a sale...

I told you I was reading. Victoria Finlay has written several books - about color (the history of pigments, not how to use it), jewels and now fabric. I'm very much enjoying the journey.

I may not be doing much sewing, but I have been doing a lot of THINKING. I want to update my tutorial about using fabrics - Making Your Fabric Work For You (aka MYFWFU). I know everybody thinks color is the most important thing, but I think if you know how to use fabric, with all the print and pattern, then you can get a lot more bang for your buck. A lot of it is how you see your fabrics (Julie and I had a very illuminating text exchange this week about that) and I want to expand and improve that idea, so I have been doing a lot of THINKING about what I need to say and how I want to say it. Don't hold your breath, it's going to take a while.

Lastly, I really have to write the Story of Millie, and how she changed my life. Many of you know the whole story, but a lot of you don't. Millie's story is amazing, and I want to tell it. If it wasn't for Millie, you wouldn't be here. So I have to think about that. Millie's blog is still up, and if you have a lot of free time, you can start at the beginning and read forward. I promise you will be astonished, that you will laugh and cry. It starts in August 2006 and ends in February 2022. In between is The Cat of a Lifetime.

You Ask, I Answer

 Buffy called me on Sunday to ask how I was. I was so pleased to hear from her. You have all been so understanding as I move through this tough year. Thank you for all your love and support.

Anyway, I told Buffy about my pink bird making plan. After I hung up, I made a pink bird and sent her a picture. "Gee, that didn't take long..." she texted back. "How long does it take you to make a bird?"

"Well, um," I replied, "once I pick the fabrics they only take me about 20 minutes or so..." 

You know me. Once that was out in the open, I had to wonder, JUST HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE? Since I love nothing more than a puzzle I decided to find out.  Watch me (sort of), dear reader as I make a bird.

Since I had my pink and pinkish scraps handy, I played around until I had these fabrics. Note I make big leg panels ahead of time. (I am not going to explain how I make these. That is what The Tutorial is for.)

Now you have to remember, I've made a few hundred birds, so I know how to do this. Here are the pieces all cut out.

Here is the first go-round of sewing. I work efficiently. If I can do several steps at the same time, I'm going to do it.

Here the bird is ALMOST put together. I need to add the legs and the trim piece on top.
 

OK! Here you go! Bird is done! (And look I changed my mind about the legs and decided to use something else.)

Buffy, you will have to do the math. Just how long did it take me to make the bird?

Yesterday, Peggy asked about the extra long rulers that hang near my ironing table. I have a confession to make. I love rulers. I have a thing for rulers. I have metal rulers because, duh, you can cut against them with your rotary cutter. I use them for trimming quilts and for cutting long things straight. There is a 36" one (also known as a yardstick), a 48" one and a 60" one. 

When you need to cut a long straight line, use the longest ruler you can find. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can push a shorter ruler along and get the same result. You must be careful with your big long metal rulers because they can get bent and nicked, and you need them to stay straight and true, so I hang mine. And I get them at the hardware store. 

I also have 18", a half meter, and a 24" ruler hanging there, along with some long rulers the guys who cut drywall use to cut something nice and "square."

I also have two gizmos I bought way back in 1984 that are probably no longer available. They are 18" rulers and you slide one thing over and the ruler will automagically find the halfway point on one, and the one-third point in the other. Hardly ever use them, but like I said, I'm a ruler junkie, so I had to have them.

 Peggy also wanted to see the fabrics I bought on Saturday. Some of them are shown above. I'll show the rest later. In the meantime, you can all go back and read this post about my Stash. It explains why I buy what I buy and how much, although I did break a couple of those rules with my purchases on Saturday.

So if YOU want to make a bird or two (or thirty or fifty) you can get my tutorial here at my Etsy shop. It's an instant download so you can get started right away. Now if you are an OCD type, and want exact dimensions of every tiny detail, you probably won't like my tutorial. My way of working is very flexible and I don't like to carve anything in stone, because flexibility = creativity and that = fun. I am not into making millions of things that are exactly the same. Besides, the birds are kinda bulletproof. You can do all kinds of things wrong and still wind up with a handsome bird. That's the definition of success in my book!

And since I know somebody will ask... the yellow thing on the metal light fixture in the picture with the rulers is a magnet on a handle. I use steel pins and a sloped worktable. Gravity happens. Need I say more? The silvery thing next to it is a small magnet at the end of a telescoping handle for reaching small metal things from a distance. Because, you know, it's a cool tool....

Millie would have been 16 today. I miss her something awful.

This picture was taken in March 2018.

 

 

 

Black & White

I keep telling people that I love the combination of Black & White, and that I love checkerboards. For example, did you know that every cat I have ever had has been black and white? (This photo of Millie was taken back in 2009.) But I digress...

You should go back and read this post about the bathrooms in my house from last Christmas. In that post I showed you the tiny shower in my main bathroom. It and the toilet live in a small L shaped room. One leg of the room is the shower and the toilet, and the other is a sort of closet of shelves that hides behind the bathroom door.

So now that you have "the lay of the land" as they say, this is what you see when you enter that little room. The shower is on the left, the toilet is on the right. This is the curtain I made. Look closely.

Yes, these are black and white bras and panties. What else is more perfect for a lady's bathroom?

This is an African mask I bought at Pier One a million years ago. I got it for my son's room back when he was in his last year of high school. He went to work with my brother in Colorado for the summer and asked me to spruce up his room when I was gone. So I did. When he moved out, he left the mask. Thank you son. Now it hangs in my bathroom.

You've seen this before. It's Seminole Patchwork and for the life of me I don't understand why it isn't more popular than it is because I think it is absolutely spectacular. Then again we all know I love the graphic (abstract) quality of quilts. The black and white are solids and the turquoise is like a batik. The color combination was inspired by the colors Danika Patrick wore one Indianapolis 500 race way back when. There are some very good books on Seminole Patchwork out there (I know, I own most of them), but they are likely out of print. Still you ought to be able to Google something if you want to know more.

This is a woodcut by Barry Moser. Go ahead, look him up. He's awesome and his work is fabulous. You can see more images here. This print is the Mad Hatter from his illustrated version of Alice.

I was cleaning out my closet to get to the Fontaine Sisters when I found the print. I had forgotten I owned the books. 

 

I thought the Mad Hatter's delightfully horrified expression would be perfect for the bathroom wall. I'd have placed him directly ABOVE the toilet if the quilt fit on the wall on the right, because I thought it would be hilarious to have him looking down at a man urinating in the toilet, except that there are no men living in this house and male visitors tend to use the guest bathroom. And besides, there is a nice symmetry to having the quilt in the middle.

I do plan to revamp this bathroom, but with the spa tub taking up so much space, and the skylight directly above it, I have some major rearranging and work, to do it. Since I am a big believer of not getting started until you know where you are going, this bathroom will wait. I will, however, be giving the guest bathroom a total revamp that should be done by summer. Part of that was replacing the toilets in both bathrooms. 

Honestly, never in a thousand years did I expect a post about TOILETS would generate more comments than a post about a quilt, but there you go. Proves once again the world is indeed a funny place.

I'll show you something EVEN MORE SPECTACULAR that I found that I didn't even know I had later.

Millie Has Gone to the Rainbow Bridge

 

After a talk with the vet on Monday I knew it was time. I made an appointment and the vet came to my home to assist Millie to the Rainbow Bridge. She went calmly, and peacefully, in my arms.

If you are thinking that you haven't seen any pictures of me holding Millie, you are right. This is literally the second time I have ever held her. I held her the first day I got her, and the last day I had her. In between we have had over fifteen years of love and magic. She has literally changed my life.

If you are reading this, it is because of Millie. She is the Cat of a Lifetime, and I will miss her very much.

I'm going to take a few days off to decompress. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

Millie

 

I took this picture of Millie on Saturday afternoon on Feb 12 2022. She spends as much of her time as she can lying on me, when I am lying on the couch covered with a quilt. She doesn't like it when I do NOT lie down.

This is a view looking down. You can see she is a lot thinner.

A month ago I found a shop in my town dedicated to cats - specifically elder cats with kidney issues. I bought a selection of foods that were good for Millie. She seemed to like one brand so I went back and bought more. But in the last week she has hardly been eating at all. 

At her vet visit in December she had lost over a third of her body weight. So now she is even lighter than that.

I am trying to spend as much time as I can with Millie.

Two In a Row

 

I worked hard to get my house ready for the festivities on Christmas. I cleaned. (I emptied out the silverware drawer, washed everything in it, cleaned the inside, and then put everything back.)

I decorated. I cooked. I even made a Tourtière. 

This is a big deal because even though I grew up eating toutiere every Christmas and New Year's I haven't eaten one in over forty years and I've never cooked one before. It's really easy (you know, "in theory"). Mix leftover stuffing from Thanksgiving (which in my French-Canadian, Quebecois family is a mixture of ground pork, beef and veal with a bit of onion, celery, some dried bread, Bell's Seasoning and chicken broth... but I liked it when my mom added walnuts and chopped apple) with some leftover mashed potatoes and put it in a pie crust (top and bottom) and bake till done. Eat hot. It's probably an artery clogger of epic proportions, but it's as homey comfort food gets. I don't even know why I thought of it, but it's not the kind of thing you make in a single serving.

 (It was absolutely flat-out spectacular, by the way.)

So what I was NOT ready for when I woke up on Christmas morning was temperatures just below freezing, and rain. Freezing rain is the worst. Not to look at or to weather, but driving in it is near impossible, When it is freezing rain, Gravity Rules. You can go, but you cannot stop. Or rather, you WILL stop (eventually) but it won't be pleasant. 

You can drive in snow, and if you are prepared, and you are careful, the odds of your getting from point A to point B safely are in your favor.

Not so with freezing rain. If the road is cold, and the rain hits it, the road freezes. Driving on it is a crap shoot. Gravity is a Hard Thing. I live on a steep hill. Do I want to get into my car only to slide down the hill into the house at the bottom of the street? I do not.

By 9 AM in the morning the news was full of accidents (one 12 car pileup about 10 miles away from me closed a major highway for several hours), and by midday several highways and roads were closed. With temperatures staying below freezing all day, and the rain forecast to fall all day, it was abundantly clear that Christmas this year would be a solitary thing.

Again.

I had a lovely FaceTime visit with my son and his family (he loves fountain pens and I gave him a box to put his in) and I talked to several of my friends and every member of my family.

Before I went to bed, I even soaked in the tub. (Sorry, no action photos).

Good thing Millie kept me company.

Merry Christmas

 

Millie* and I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Here is what is "under" my tree. A lot of lined drawstring bags. Most are made specially for the recipients. The Dinosaur bags are in California. 

 

*Millie has been eating a senior cat food and is doing well.

Binding & Blown Away

 

I'm sewing the binding on the Allegretto quilt, and watching Blown Away Christmas on Netflix.

Milllie wouldn't eat the prescription cat food no matter how little of it I mixed into her normal food. I did a bit of research and found that the brand she likes (Fancy Feast) makes a version for senior cats, and packages a dozen cans of three different varieties on one box. I  bought a box, and Millie liked all three varieties. WIN!! I am hoping I'll be more able to disguise the prescription food into this food after a day or two.

One reader suggested one tablespoon of the prescription food mixed into a can of the regular (or senior) cat food, and that was a great idea. The first day I mixed 50/50 and Millie took one sniff and walked away.

One of my work colleagues has a 16 year old cat, and he says they feed her one teaspoon of (prescription) food at a time. When she eats that, she'll get another teaspoon. That's a little drastic, but it is an idea I have to keep in my back pocket.

This and That

 

This is the final gift bag for my granddaughter in the City of Angels. The gift that fit in this bag was shipped out earlier today. This bag is the Artist (or large) bag, but I made it two inches longer. 

I don't usually get a double Amaryllis, but this one is pretty spectacular. This bloom is every big as usual, about eight inches across.

I got a box of fizzy bath bombs, so now my spa tub is completely decked out, and DAMN! It looks good. I'm pretty sure I'm going to try it out real soon. But if anybody thinks I'm going to be reading my iPad while I'm soaking in the tub is crazy. I've already lost one iPhone to water (the washing machine,) so that isn't going to happen. I have a real live paperback book I can read if I want, but to me the point of soaking in a tub is just to relax, so that's what I plan to do.

While I worked on the binding of the Allegretto quilt, I binge watched The School of Chocolate on Netflix this weekend and was extremely impressed with the teacher, Amaury Guichon. His feedback was excellent, and kind, which is a rarity in "reality TV."

Finally, Millie's kidney levels are very high, and the specialized food for that would be very good for her... if she'll eat it, which she hasn't done yet. If she won't, the vet suggests I get any food she'll eat, as long as it is designed for "Senior Cats." Advice and suggestions welcome.

Millie

 

Years ago DKM gave me this tuxedo cat vase. She thought it looked like Millie It lives in the guest bathroom. As I was decorating the house for Christmas I thought I should put something in it, but didn't know what. Then I realized I have a holly bush in my front yard.

This is Millie. I brought her for her annual checkup at the Vet on Saturday. Millie is 15-1/2 years old, so this visit was fraught with what-ifs. I have thought she was thinner, and I was correct. She weighed 10.22 pounds this time, which means she has lost a quarter of her body weight since last year. Not particularly great. She also has an enlarged teat (it's about the size of a large blueberry) that she's been licking a lot. It seems to have been weeping. This is not the kind of thing I could have seen, since I never get to hold her or look. She also has a heart murmur.

We did the Senior Wellness Screening, which means they drew blood to see how she's doing. I'll know the results about midweek. As we all know, there is no definitive test for cancer, but the enlarged teat could be cancerous. We wouldn't know for sure unless it was surgically removed and then sent for testing. There's no point making a decision until we know the results of the bloodwork. 

Otherwise she seems good. Her eyes are bright, her fur is shiny and clean, her appetite is good, she uses the litterbox and she doesn't seem to have any trouble jumping up onto the couch or to the window to get out on the porch.

But she is a lot chummier than she used to be, and she no longer joins me at the table when I have breakfast in the morning. I have to face reality. She won't be around a lot longer, and now that time will be measured in months, not years. When I get the results of the bloodwork back I will have to decide if spending money to remove the teat will buy her any significant improvement in the quality of her life. 

There is no right answer and it's a gamble one way or the other.

Catch Up

 

After a day of food food food, Friday was a day of playing catch up. 

After I planned my menus for the coming week, I placed my grocery order before I went to bed on Thursday. It was ready by 9AM the next day, so I had a quick breakfast then went to pick it up. I filled the car with gas then did another errand and went home. I made a big batch of tomato soup for my lunches during the week, made a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and then packed the Christmas presents into their gift bags, calculated all the shipping costs, printed the labels and then drove to the post office to drop them off. Back at home I did all the laundry, folded it; changed the sheets on the bed, cleaned up the kitchen and made dinner and ran the dishwasher.

I switched out the pink pillows and quilt for the Holiday Boxes quilt and silver pillows, hung the Happy Holidays quilt and switched out Millie's summer tent for the winter version. As you can see Millie wasted no time in covering it with her furs. I'll put up the Christmas decorations a little at a time over the next few days.

I still have to clean off the dining room table and cover it with the Christmas table cover, pay a few bills and move some garden tools to the shed. It's snowing as I write this, and although it won't stick around, it does mean the end of the garden season, so it's beyond time to put the garden tools away and bring out the snow shovels.

I've got a few more bags to make too.

My mother was so funny. She saw the bags I made for my son, DIL and DGG and said, "So Lynne, where is MY bag? Am I going to get one...?"

Lined Gift Bags

 

 I'm making the lined fabric bags for Christmas gifts this year. This one is for my dinosaur-loving granddaughter. She loves the scaled fabric ("Green like T-Rex" she said about it.)

The contrast fabric is also dinosaur themed and the lining is the black and white animal fabrics. I used the green scaled fabric on the back of her dinosaur quilt and had JUST enough of it to make the bag.

These are the fabrics I have chosen for a bag for my daughter-in-law, who is a stylish gal who loves vintage clothing. 

I think it's weird that I call my 88-year old mother's 83-year old "beau" her boyfriend, but he is a retired engineer. These are the fabrics I chose for his bag.

My mother loves bright colors. This is fabric for her gift. The lining fabric is on the right. 

There is another bag I am making, but it's a secret so I can't show it just yet.

Every morning I get up and set out Millie's food, then go take my shower. The other morning I was about to step into the shower when I realized I hadn't seen Millie eat. Since she's getting on in years and my greatest fear is that one day I'm going to come home from work and find her dead, I went through the house room by room looking for her. I looked behind the couch, under the bed and behind the ironing table. I couldn't find her anywhere. I went through the house a second time, and then a third. On the third pass I found her, napping in a pile of fabric on the floor in the studio.

Pinning Pink Panther & Millie

 I've been pinning the binding over the front of the Pink Panther quilt. It takes time, but I like having it done before I sew the binding down.

Quite frankly I've been worried about my cat, Millie. She no longer jumps on the table when I have breakfast in the morning. and she spends most of her time curled up in a tight ball napping in the living room. She's been VERY DEMANDING when she wants me to lie on the couch so she can climb on top of me and nap. So that's what has been occupying my time lately. Me, lying down with Millie on top of me, purring, while I either watch TV or read. Oh gee, so tough.

She's fifteen years old. I can't tell, but I think she's a bit thinner. We have an appointment set up with the vet in a few weeks, so I will know more then. She still has lustrous fur, her eyes are bright, and she seems to move around the house freely, but she's definitely slowing down. She's had a great run, and I am aware that every day I have with her is a gift, so I try to give her the attention she wants. That means I don't post as much, but Millie is more important.

The Obstacle

 An obstacle is something that keeps you from doing something else. I am sorry I haven't been posting as much as usual lately, but something (or someone) has been making it a bit hard on me. To wit:

These pictures have been taken over the last week to 10 days.

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to see what they have in common.

 Each picture was taken on a different day.

Millie has been quite DEMANDING.

 

She's been very INSISTENT.

The only thing I can "do" while Millie uses me as her own personal pillow is to read or watch TV. I can't hand sew binding on a quilt, and I can't work on my laptop. Giving her scritches while I try to work on my laptop only results in her sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME, giving me the STINKEYE and MEOWING. It does not matter if I am petting her. She MEOWS to get me to LOOK AT HER and does not stop until I lie down. Then she climbs right on, makes herself comfy, and purrs. And stays there for a couple of hours.

Yeah, I know, really tough work...

Look, I can't really complain. I've only been waiting fifteen years for this. And I have been tired lately. I got my Covid booster shot the other night too. I haven't yet sewn the binding on the Pink Panther quilt, and I really want to get that down this weekend. I'm having lunch with P later on Saturday, and her quilt is ready to  be picked up. I'll get that next week. And my dad has planned a lunch with the lady priest to give her the quilt, except he wants me to be there and it's smack dab in the middle of the day on the busiest day of my work week.