Like riding a bike ...

Yesterday, in the studio, Becky did a "test drive" of my binding instructions while she waited for me to give Pat a quick refresher on the Avante (longarm quilting machine). Becky's never done a binding before, so she was the perfect candidate to try to follow the directions. I'm glad she was able to figure it out -- makes me more confident that my upcoming demo for the quilt club will be okay. While Pat quilted, Becky and I made some progress on her quilt. It's coming out nicely, and we're nearly ready to put it on the machine and let her have at it. It's time to choose a quilting design. Decisions, decisions!

So here's Pat's accomplishment for the day:

It's been a year since she's been here, but I only had to remind her how to get started and then off she went. It's like riding a bike ... you never forget. I've gotta tell you: this quilt is 97x114 inches and by choosing a simple yet pretty pattern, she got it quilted in a day and didn't even have to skip lunch to do it! Nice job, Pat!

I've got some quilts to show everyone. They belong to a fellow I used to work with many moons ago. His home along the river was ruined in the recent flooding, but thankfully, these quilts survived unharmed.

Two of them are antiques. I'll get some photos later today and post them for the viewing pleasure of all. That will have to wait until after I take some time to scare the socks off Dr. L again this morning. Oh, the power I have in the dentist's chair!

She's done it again ...

Penny came one day last week to quilt one she's put together for the shop that is collecting quilts for flood victims of Owego, NY. She made it from scraps of others she's done, using a simple pattern that goes together quickly but is still pretty. She chose a swirl pattern for quilting that was just the right touch to make it fancy, and was finished in less than three hours.

All she has left to do now is the binding, and she expects to have it done in an evening. I hadn't heard about the effort to collect quilts, so had nothing to contribute besides time in the studio. How did I NOT hear about it?!? I need to get out more.

A good read; a new sock ...

I finished reading Killing Lincoln ... (Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard) last night. It tells the story of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, beginning six weeks prior to the event. It was a good read. Reviews I read say it's not always technically accurate in details, like which room what happened in at the White House, but I'm not sure that's important. At least not to me. I'm not a researcher nor an investigator trying to solve any controversy. I was just looking for something that could hold my interest for a couple of nights. This book fit the bill, for sure. I couldn't put the thing down.

They say O'Reilly was once a history teacher. If all high school history teachers had his knack, school could be much more interesting for American students. A teacher can make all the difference in the world, according to how well they can bring a subject to life. That brings to mind a few of my history teachers when I was in school. My American History teacher in HS had to be the absolute worst. (Sorry, Mr. F, but it's absolutely true.) He was lazy. And full of himself. He spent more time bragging about himself than doing any teaching. He had a "policy" of giving out a certain number of As, Bs, Cs, etc. He doled them out more according to how well he liked/disliked a student more than anything else. This teacher didn't TEACH anything. He assigned reading every day, then gave quizzes whenever he ran out of stuff about himself to talk about in class. I'm telling you, he was THE worst teacher, ever!

One of my best friends in that class openly flirted with him to "earn" her A every marking period. I usually got a B. One day I confronted him about his grading system. He admitted that it WAS ridiculous, but said he had no intention of changing it. So, being the bold brat that I was and probably still am, I told him I wanted an A on the next report card, indicating that unless I got it, there would be trouble. I got the A. How gross is that?!?

In college, I had the same professor for sociology and Russian history. After several weeks that semester, I received notice that I was to meet him in his office one day. He asked me why there was such a discrepancy between my performance in sociology and that in Russian history class. Asking him to pardon my bluntness, I had been wondering the same thing about him. I explained that the way he taught sociology put me to sleep. Literally. I used to ask my friends sitting nearby in the crowded, too-warm lecture hall to poke me if I dozed. No joke. The class was crowded only because it was a required course. I suspected he got stuck teaching something he didn't have any interest in. (They had a problem filling all the teaching positions that year.) His presentation of Russian history, on the other hand, was a thrill a minute! Seriously. Full of mystery, intrigue, facts I'd never heard before, and I marveled at his amazing knowledge.

I thought that I was certain to have the Riot Act read to me, but his comment was, "Fair enough." And in fairness to him, he did make an effort to keep me awake in sociology class after that. I managed to get thru the class with an average grade, while I got what they called "high honors" in his Russian history class. I'm telling you, it's all about the teacher.

And with that note, I'll quit my rant about teachers and show you what I'm doing to continue my effort to reduce the stash:

I have just a couple of balls of this yarn. It's 100 percent wool and will make warm, cozy socks. One can never have too many of those! There's enough yarn to make both socks to match, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't matter to me. I intend to use up odds and ends to increase my hoard of sockage while decreasing the stash of yarn around here. If that means I have one of a kind, all the better! Whoever made up the rule that socks must match ought to have been ousted from rule-making right at the beginning. How much more interesting the wearing of socks would be today!

Red Bull, of a different sort ...

Red Bull with mama, Little Red :

-- November 1: a sunny day for his debut.

New Red with mama, Big Red:

she refuses to stay inside. She is bigger than I am (a little, at least). She wins.

Becky came yesterday to work on her quilt, and brought this beauty for Show & Tell:

It is a generations-old quilt made by the womenfolk of her family and recently given to her by her grandmother. It is in beautiful condition, having been cherished by the ladies in whose hands it has been for so many years. It actually skipped a generation, and I'm guessing that's because it is obvious Becky is one who will appreciate the gift. Lucky girl, that Becky!

Something new ...

I took this picture early this morning, before the sun had a chance to finish melting our snow.

I think the way it froze after starting to melt away yesterday is interesting. Looks like the "snow" icing on a gingerbread house, doesn't it? I never realized it happens in real life that way.

Here's New Red, with her mama, Big Red. Late this morning, Big Red broke through a fence in order to make her way down to the bottom of the pasture where she prefers to have her calves. I knew today would be the day, because before I even went out for chores early this morning, I could hear her "talking" to the calf. So far, everything seems to be okay, except BR doesn't seem to want to be confined inside the barn. She's a HUGE animal, and if she decides to break a door down, it won't take much effort on her part. Let's hope she can settle down for a few days, until the little 0ne gets the hang of things. I have to go give her some nice, clean bedding. Maybe that will help.

Well, then ...

We live in a place that I'm pretty sure rivals Siberia when it comes to weather. Our first frost date in the Fall is September 10th. Planting anything here save the most hardy things before the very end of May is risky. This year's weather was one for the record books -- and not in a good way, because of way too much rain.

But we actually got a reprieve this month. We had only light frost until last night. Having heard the weather report earlier in the week, I ran to fetch the last of whatever was lingering in the garden. I found a zucchini plant with six good fruits, a plastic grocery bagful of peppers, and eleven cabbages.

The cabbages were last, and got snowed 0n before I grabbed the last of them:

So now it appears that Winter is going to make up for lost time. The National Weather Service is saying we can get up to six inches of snow tomorrow. That's okay for me, though. I've got a good book to read, a knitting project on the needles, the apple pie I promised DH in the oven, and a pot of hearty soup on the stove. I hope those who don't have the option of staying home will at least be safe wherever they are.

It’s all I can stacks, ‘cause I can’t stacks no more!

The pile is big. It's two layers deep, and over my head. DH came home yesterday and asked how I got the wood up that high -- with a ladder?!? No, actually I tossed it up.

He's always amazed when I do something that requires Amazonian strength. Still. After all these years. It reminds me of one day he came home thru a blizzard. We had about three feet of heavy, wet snow everywhere. He went upstairs and glanced out the window, then called to me. "Look! The snow all melted off the kitchen roof! No place else -- just the kitchen roof!" (The kitchen is a one-story addition at the back of the house.)

Well, du-uuh! I had worked my tailfeathers off, shovelling the snow off that roof before he got home. He said that, knowing my fear of height, he would never have suspected I'd get up there and do that. Well, yes. I am afraid of heights. But I'm even MORE afraid of having the kitchen ceiling collapse upon my head from the weight of that snow.

So ... back to the wood pile. He admired it for a bit, and then asked me how I was going to get it back down when I need it. Good question. Well ... we DO have ladders.

And here's my latest project:
















I started it with yarn from my stash, only to discover that even though I had way more than was called for, it was going to run out before I got finished. Of COURSE, it had to be yarn I had purchased a couple of years back and that the color is now discontinued. (You KNEW it could be no other way with me, right?) So I went online and searched. And searched. And searched some more. Nobody has any more. In fact, I found a request that had been posted on a forum a couple of years ago by someone in the exact same predicament. I was tempted to send her a message asking for any scraps she may have left, in the event she was able to get the additional ball she needed back then. But, this story has a happy ending: I e'd the manufacturer who put me in touch with a vendor who happened to have some left. Of course, the last ball cost as much as the rest all put together, and I had to pay a hefty fee for S&H, but ... I'm happy. The project is for my littlest GD, and it looks like I'll be able to finish it before she outgrows it! Woo-hoo!