No Crying in Quilting

Jimmy Dugan: Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There's no crying! THERE'S NO CRYING IN QUILTING!
Doris Murphy: Why don't you give her a break, Jimmy...
Jimmy Dugan: Oh, you zip it, Doris! Roger Hornsby was my manager, and he called me a talking pile of pig%*@&. And that was when my parents drove all the way down from Michigan to see my quilt on display in Paducah. And did I cry?
Evelyn Gardner: No, no, no.
Jimmy Dugan: Yeah! NO. And do you know why?
Evelyn Gardner: No...
Jimmy Dugan: Because there's no crying in quilting. THERE'S NO CRYING IN QUILTING! No crying!

Friend Jill quoted this to Linda earlier today. And added this lovely phrase....

Now there are times that you need this kind of friend. The one who will put on her pointiest cowboy boots and give your hiney a good ol' kick to get you moving again.

Linda's been dealing with some emotional baggage, and all humans have some. Occasionally she climbs up the rickety ladder to her mental attic, moves all the old candlesticks and boxes of dolls around, reaches for the leather satchel (sometimes it actually resembles Pandora's box), blows the dust off of it, gets the little rusty key out of her pocket, opens the luggage and lets the moths fly out. Then she examines each and every thing one by one. It's a filthy, but necessary process.

When she's still in the muck of it, she believes a lot of the lies that the satchel holds. The one that says she's unworthy. The lie that says love must be earned. The falsehood that says no matter what she does, she is inadequate.

Believing the lies, she hides away. Not only does she protect herself by doing so, but "saves" other people from having to be subjected to her.

Then friends like Jill, Cathy, the girls from Quilted Chaos, the Biblical Babes, Kim, Monica and so many others remind her to be fearless and not to believe the lies any more.

Attendance at the St. Jude's Retreat is now mandatory for Linda. She can't get out of it. Her friends won't let her hide away.

And she's now saying to the Satan who lives in the satchel....

Tough Decisions

These humans! They fret over every little thing. Whereas the only thing that ever bothers me is not getting my food on time, being pushed off a lap (how RUDE!), and having the occasional hairball.

Linda, on the other hand, is apparently going through some things that humans consider challenges. A marital separation, along with some other personal issues, are causing her to more closely examine how she spends her time.

Uh-oh. I know what this means. When she's in one of these cycles she withdraws from everything but work and one-on-one relationships. Did you know that human females also create caves? Only in this case the cave is called the sewing room.

Just today Linda canceled membership in various groups and decided not to go on the St. Jude's Retreat. Those things aren't easy decisions, but they're the right ones for where she is in her creative, personal, and spiritual journey right now.

The good news from all of this (and yes, there is always good news and an opportunity to be thankful) is that the kits are prepared so some productive, lazy sewing just might take place around here.

I like being a cat. We don't seek approval from anyone. In fact, consider yourself lucky if we give you ours.

Purrs,
Pi

Great Weekend

We put that balance of "Mary and Martha" into practice over the weekend. Plenty of productivity, relationship work, reflection and joy.

First of all, another project is being readied for the St. Jude's retreat, which is now less than two weeks away. Portugal is a fabric line by Moda and Linda purchased this as a kit while vacationing last fall in Myrtle Beach, SC with bff Kim.


That's now a total of four projects going to retreat. There's no way that they will all get done, but what a great way to get some chain piecing done!

Linda's also been programming her IPOD with music and books (currently listening to Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs).

Friday morning Linda met dear friend Monica at Panera's to catch up. (Friends for over 25 years are worth celebrating!) Friday evening Butch and Sundance rejoined our household. They went for a visitation to CatDaddy's apartment. It's been quite an adjustment to have them back. Trouble, their nurturing mother-like cat, has been hissing and swatting at them for days. I'll be glad when things get back to normal and we can just ignore each other again.

Friday evening Linda and CatDaddy attended Philip's concert at Miami University. The Cheezies were magnificent!

Saturday morning Linda puttered, kind of tired and still coughing. Saturday evening Pal Judy came over for pizza and a movie. They had such a good time talking and looking through quilting books that the movie never was played.

Philip came home for Easter Sunday and returned to school today. Always good to have him here.

Linda's over pneumonia. We've heard of three other people who have had it this past week. Strains that are growing resistant to antibiotics, perhaps?

The grass had its first cutting of the season yesterday, just in time for the downpours here today. It was important for Linda to see that she can manage the house by herself. It was a glorious sunny day!

A Taxing Day

Logan's exhausted from doing the taxes.

You really don't want to be around here when it's time to work on taxes. There's cussing (which is a rarity in these-here-parts), muttering under the breath, papers everywhere, and in general high levels of distress.

Uncle Sam hates the idea that hubby has a free-lance job in addition to his regular work, and we get hit with a huge self-employment tax every year. Therefore, the process is put off as long as possible. But today it's done! And the damages were just about what we expected.

Which explains this.


We've also got another project to go to retreat. Cutting time is tomorrow. This is the Pinwheel pattern from Phenomenal Fat Quarter Quilts by M'Liss Rae Rawley. There are six dark/medium fat quarters for the pinwheels, six lights for the background, yellow for the inner border, and a pretty print for the outer border. A lot of the fabrics are from Chez Moi for Moda (some are "Posh" and some are "Charisma," plus a few odds and ends thrown in).


Plans for this weekend are also firmed up. A few postponements had to be made due to Linda's health, but we're still on to attend The Cheezies concert at Miami University tomorrow night. Linda's son is a member of this men's acapella group. I've included a Youtube link to give you an idea of the joy in music that will be shared. (You'll need to cut and paste the link into your browser.) Philip is the tall, light brown-haired fellow singing and emoting right behind the lead singers. This video makes my heart soar with love for this young man!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgMceS_imy0


Saturday night a couple of girlfriends are coming over to eat pizza and watch "Calendar Girls." Great chick flick evening! And of course, this Sunday is Easter. Rejoice!!

Dinner anyone?

House of Gratitude

Be thankful in all circumstances (I Thessalonians 5:18) is a habit than can be developed. It's a habit that is serving us well today. Staying positive is an ongoing process. I've found that I too easily fall prey to negative thinking when I am around people with a critical nature. It brings out the parts of myself that I don't like. I've learned to either avoid those folks or not take anything they say personally.

Linda has pneumonia. So why are we thankful?

• That this didn't happen during a teaching week.
• That the quilt shop owner is being kind and understanding about Linda not coming into work.
• That Zithromax and prednisone will get this bad boy knocked right out of her system.
• That the pneumonia vaccine she took a year ago ensures a less severe case than what she's had in the past.
• That there's nowhere she absolutely has to be.
• The sun is out and streaming through the windows. It makes everything so cheerful!
• The daffodils are still blooming despite the frost we got last night.

Does your life follow the pattern of pushing yourself so hard for so long that you don't even notice it until God just forces you to slow down? That's what happens to us and it's always an "aha" moment.

Ironically, this is the book that Momcat is reading.


This book gives us a glimpse into the story of Martha and Mary in the Bible. While Martha was doing everything she could to get ready for a houseful of guests, including Jesus, Mary just sat at his feet and listened. Martha was pretty upset about this (and wouldn't we be too!?) and asked Jesus to intervene on her behalf.

"Tell her to help me!" Or in today's vernacular we'd say, "Boss, tell her to get off her butt and get to work."

Jesus responded by saying, "Martha, you're worried about a lot of things. Mary's chosen the better part."

The entire book is about how women have both Martha and Mary inside of them, but our current fast-paced world rewards and encourages the Martha personality. Mary focuses upon the eternal and meditative, Martha is a doer.

Now Linda's able to take the time to not only read the book, but to reflect upon its message.

Being task-oriented is a hallmark of her personality, and the groups that she's in feed right into that. How many UFOs did you finish? What are you working on? Make sure to log the hours you worked last night on your quilt. Did you finish that block yet? Human beans put so much pressure on themselves. Why do people compare themselves to others so much? In what way does that serve any of them? For those beans who are spiritual, how does that magnify the Lord? What Linda's finding is that the competitiveness (although friendly) and documentation takes away some of the joy she should be experiencing when quilting. Much of that is in her nature of seeking approval and always having to earn something. So she can become easily overwhelmed and feels that she doesn't measure up to what she really ought to be accomplishing.

I know that not everyone feels the same way, and that's fine. But maybe some of you do, and you're wondering how you got to this point. For my bean, she's in danger of perceiving her leisure time into yet more obligations to fulfill. Momcat really needs to pray and get her head on straight. Perhaps this down time is meant to be used in a way to think some of this stuff through.

Create a Small Group Library

Here's a tip for tough economic times: Combine your resources.

If you're in a small quilting group of 10 or fewer people, think of all the books and patterns that all of you own. Why not create a lending library to share with one another? This works best if everyone has access to the computer because you'll use Excel or another database to create your inventory.

Here's how to do it:

• Create a group site on Yahoo for your own small group.
  

• Each person logs her own materials. Here's an edited view of my Excel file for what I own so you can see how I categorize. The blog isn't large enough to show the 3rd column in Excel in which each book is labeled according to technique. It provides another way to sort on the spreadsheet. So if I'm trying to find out if I already own a book on applique' I can go to the spreadsheet and sort accordingly.
  

Books
Title	Author	Topic
101 Foundation-Pieced Quilt Blocks	Causee, Linda	Foundation-piecing
101 Fun-to-Quilt Pot Holders	Trice Boerens	Pieced blocks
202 Little Log Cabin Blocks	Causee, Linda	Foundation-piecing
24 Blocks for Kids' Quilts	Causee, Linda	Foundation-piecing
24 Kids' Quilt Blocks	Kauffman, Connie	Foundation-piecing
50 Nifty Iron-On Quilt Labels	Hillman, Barbara Baatz	Labels
A Quilter's Ark	Rolfe, Margaret	Foundation-piecing
All American Quilts and Pillows	Libal, Joyce	Patriotic pillows
Applique 12 Easy Ways!	Sienkiewicz, Elly	Applique
At Home with Thimbleberries Quilts	Jensen, Lynette	Thimbleberries
Autumn & Winter Seasonal Samplers	Mumm, Debbie	Country
Basic Guide to Rotary Cut Quilts	Fons & Porter
Bias Square Miniatures	Carlson, Christine	Miniature Quilts
Bits and Pieces	Soltys, Karen Costello	Fat quarters & scraps
Block Magic	Johnson-Srebro, Nancy	Pieced blocks
Block Magic, Too!	Johnson-Srebro, Nancy	Pieced blocks
Block Party	McCloskey, Marsha	Rotary-cut 9" Blocks
Card Art	Terry, Susan S.	Postcards
Christmas Baskets	Mumm, Debbie	Country
Clever Quarters, Too	Dissmore, Susan Teegarden	Fat quarters
Country Calendar	Mumm, Debbie	Country
Cozy Cabin Quilts (Thimbleberries)	Jensen, Lynette	Thimbleberries

I do the same thing for Patterns. Everyone in your group should use the same template. Pick one that works for you.

• Now on your group web site, upload your file into a database. Either one person can combine all of the information into one Excel file that can be a link, using the individuals' names as another category, or you can go into each individual's file to see what they have.
  

• Make sure that all of your group members include their contact information. Naturally, the people who don't want to loan out their materials won't participate.
  

• If you are a borrower: Record the date, book or pattern title, lender's name, and what date to return the item.
  

• If you are a lender: Record the date loaned, the item, the borrower's name and what date you expect the item returned.
  

• You could easily include a Lending Library Circulation file on your group's website to include the above two pieces of information.
  

• If you don't want to update your inventory record as soon as you bring something in, at least do it every quarter or so. Just stack any new book or pattern in a special place (don't intermingle with your current books) so you'll know what to add to your inventory.
  

• Be respectful of other people's books. Don't write in them, use a book mark rather than lying them face down (that breaks a book's spine eventually), and don't dog-ear the pages.

On a different note, Linda is supposed to be at a machine applique' class right now and then work at the shop. Instead she's got flu-like symptoms. Fever of 101.8, dizziness, chills, body aches and she sounds pretty disgusting, too.

No energy to quilt or putter around the house. Do you realize how lousy daytime TV is? Thank goodness for the big pink fluffy terrycloth robe, orange juice, hot tea, Puffs with Lotion, cats, a good book and of course, a comfy quilt. Not too great to call in sick on only her fourth day, but what can you do?

Snuggling with a Sickie,
Pi

Just Kitting

The first day working at the quilt shop yesterday was terrific and Linda returns today, so I guess she didn't make too much of a mess of things (other than taking the entire shop off-line thanks to hitting the wrong button in spite of Jill saying ,"No, hit cancel!" Or taking a ruler away from Jill because she was too lost in her own little world. Or folding the fat quarters wrong and having to redo them. Just why is she allowed back today?)

The St. Jude's retreat is just 18 days away and there's still so much to do in preparation!

This morning we worked on preparing another PIG to take along. The pattern is Fiddlesticks by Kansas Troubles Quilters.

I'm using two Wild Rose jelly rolls by Brannock and Patek for Moda. This pattern would also work well for all those 2 1/2" strips from your stash.

I'm cutting it using one of my favorite tools, June Tailor's Shape Cutter. It has slots every 1/2" up to 12".


I've had mine for a couple of years and use it tons. In fact, you can see that I've taped one corner due to traveling and having SOMEONE (with human hands, so take a wild guess who it was) accidentally bend it when putting a heavy object like, say, a sewing machine on top of it. You can also see that it's been marked with numbers on both sides. That's so that we don't wear out the slotted openings on only one side.

It's a marvelous helper when you're cutting lots of 2", nickels or other similar size pieces. I layered 4-5 jelly roll strips on top of each other, then went down the line cutting my rectangles and squares. It was so much faster than lining up the ruler each time.

I still need to pick out the fabric for the sashing, inner and outer borders and binding. Shopping from my stash is a job for tomorrow.



Your feline friend,
Piwacket

The Joy of Friendship

Friends come in all shapes, sizes, colors, age groups and species. Linda came home with mixed emotions today. Tomorrow finishes her extended teaching assignment as the 6th grade writing teacher. Since early September she's been instructing about 125 students in vocabulary, grammar, literature and the joy of the written word. It's difficult to leave them after being their teacher for 3/4 of the year, but the regular contract teacher has completed her maternity leave and it's time for Linda to move on.



Tears were shed today when her 5th period students presented her with this gorgeous gift basket and beautiful card. There was one human treat (chocolate!) and everything else in the basket was for me and my siblings. Isn't that wonderful of these student writers to take care of us? Linda is grateful that she is now able to call these young people friends and hopes that their paths cross again in the future.

You can see how we immediately started looking at our bounty. Butch has boundless, fearless energy. He was the second one (after me) to get into everything. Logan tends to watch the rest of us for awhile, so it was interesting to have her investigate so quickly.



Sunny immediately claimed a ball. She started carrying it all around the house, growling as she did. She'd drop the ball, bat at it, and then start carrying it around again.



Butch and Trouble, on the other hand, were enamored of the ....the....the thing. It is a wand with feathers at the end. Trouble carried it from room to room with Butch trailing behind to grab it. Negotiating in and around the kitchen chairs proved challenging.



And Logan watched. This is Logan's bewildered expression. The "so what's all this then?" look.



Trice is a friend from Quilted Chaos, our neighborhood quilting group. She recently made this very neat sewing machine catch-all for Linda. It is so cheerful and useful. Trice is generous with her talents.



That's our Janome 6260QC in the picture. We do everything on this machine and love it. Someday we'll do a before and after of the sewing room. Right now it is definitely in the BEFORE stage.


WEEKEND TO DO LIST

Here's the list for the weekend, with the question marks indicating that those items are on the list for Sunday only if it turns out that Linda's not working that day. Have I mentioned how excited we are that she's starting to work at the LQS on weekends? (Good heavens, the woman is giggling at the mere mention of this.)

• Attend "Drive In and Sew" at the LQS on Friday night. More info and pictures will be posted later.
• Have first day of work at the LQS on Saturday. Fortunately buddy Jill is one of the people doing the training, so Linda probably won't end up with any battle scars.
• Laundry
  
• Cut the front yard (first cut of the season)???
• Work on taxes???
• Attend church???
• Get things ready for retreat???
  
• Buy paint and supplies for the kitchen re-do???
• Pay the bills
• Call Mom
• Call Aunt Betty
• Visit Philip???

Count your blessings, not your sorrows, each and every day.
Purrs,
Pi

Back in Business

Praise the Lord! Linda was befuddled, muttering to herself, and in general looking ridiculous as she crawled around amongst the dust bunnies, unplugging everything she could find. Replugged it in and still nothing. While at work she read all the trouble-shooting pages and realized that now that she'd tried everything, it was time to buy a new monitor, even though the "old" one is only a couple of years old.

So off to Best Buy she went, making a purchase that she didn't want to make. Got back home and unplugged everything again in order to do the installation. Just to double-check one last time, she plugged the old monitor into another outlet. Power light came on!

Oh no, so it's not the monitor? It's the computer itself? Holy crap!!!

Rather than getting the new monitor out of the box, let's just try one more time to reinsert each and every connection (for the third time).

Hallelujah! It worked. Although the icons were HUGE! Only eight desktop icons could fit on the screen. How the heck did that happen?

So back to the troubleshooting and feeling our way around the screen settings. We're finally up and running again. The new monitor will go back to Best Buy sometime this weekend. Thank goodness...that was just not in the budget!

AND NOW BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED POST


IN FOCUS ...


More Quilts for Baby: As Easy as ABC is one of my favorite quilting books. There are 21 easy-to-make quilts in this book, which is full of great tips, clear instructions, and beautiful pictures of finished projects. If you ever need a super-quick baby gift, you can't go wrong with this selection.

Ursula also shows several of the designs in mature colorways and larger sizes. Don't let the title fool you....these patterns will serve you way past the baby stage.

I used the PS I Love You pattern from page 44 to make this cute baptismal quilt for a little girl at our church. I made it using a darling flannel print with a little kitten gathering apples. It took only a weekend from start to finish, including quilting in the ditch.


LATE BREAKING MEWS: Linda's just accepted the weekend position at our local quilt shop. First day of training is this Saturday! Let's see, the cost of the monitor has been averted and now we'll have some income to support our obsession. I'd say this is a VERY good day!

Purrs,
Piwacket

Computer Woes

Noooooooo!!!! Is this some sick April Fools' Day joke being played on me by the universe??

Our monitor is dead. Black. Nada. This entry is being posted by my scribe from a remote location. We're all running amok around here.

If you're reading this then your computer is important to you, too. Every now and then it's good to shake up our world to realize how dependent we've become on technology.

The computer is one of our primary means of staying connected to family and friends (through email, Facebook, chat rooms, and yes, blog posts). It's an important resource for education and research. Almost all of our bills are set up electronically (trying to go a little green and reduce the paper clutter). It's a major source of entertainment through games, video and music downloads, and just general surfing.

So you can imagine the panic that ensued when everything except the monitor was working this morning. We just love seeing Linda crawl around on the floor checking cables and electrical outlets when she's trying to get ready for work.

Today's entry was supposed to be an In Focus....a book or pattern. Instead I'm hoping for some commiseration from the rest of you on how you've coped during a computer malfunction, or at least how tied you are to your desktop buddy.

Tonight I envision every cord being unplugged and replugged trying to get some juice going to the monitor. I'm sure that the kittens will be helpful as they tangle the wires and climb all over a frustrated human. There might even be some bad words spoken.

Wish us luck!