This N That

We are the Red Cross

the soup kitchen

and transport

One can't walk

one's heating aching joints

the other shuts down

Those still standing

try to make it better

hoping "Normal"

is closer than it was

We've had freezing rain and cold temps but nothing we couldn't deal with (and I'm frantically searching my mind how to NOT end this sentence with a preposition. Some lessons never leave.  I guess it's okay now.  I hear people saying "Want to go with?"  With what???  Don't leave me hanging.) 

The after care and day care station is still open.  A visit later today to see how the skin grafts are taking.  I'm glad we can help but we are tired. It is straining on the pocket book and every one's patience.  No one can help the situation.  We must muddle through with as much good grace as we can muster. Eight days from our second month with at least four months to go...and eight days.

Poor Bonnie had to return to the vet after her surgery. In a few short days she dropped from 83.5 pounds to a terrible sixty pounds.  She has come back strong and nearing her original weight.  That "free" puppy now has an invested value of $489.17.

Marcy was transported to the hospital one day but I brought her home with me.

I am crocheting in all my FREE time and trying to read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Apparently I am at fault and "attract" this chaos.  I must find out the "secret" to ending that attraction. This was a book I chose at Salvation Army just because the cover was pretty.  Won't do that again unless I need the cover for a project.

So here I am being non creative, dull and boring.

May your best dreams come true this week.

What I've Been Doing...

to keep from going stir crazy.  I cleaned all the appliances, cabinets and have a casserole baking.

I try to crochet when I sit because Granny always said, Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

I've begun to work up the old blue jeans into quilts.  Waste not want not.

The snow clings to mountains and shadowed places.  We have a hint of spring but is it real?  I'm so grateful to see brown!

I Like Doilies

I think you know,

and they kinda hide the dust!

Any excuse to use them is fine with me.

And place, any where,

is a good place for one.

I envy the talent.

I do not have the patience, nor the eyesight,

 to work with small thread.

I can make big things with big threads and strings.

I have done afghans, rugs, shawls and scarves.

Self-taught, if I use a pattern, I have to use two books,

one that directs and the other that tells me

what kind of blooming stitch they are talkin' about now.

Anyone want to throw out your doilies,

let me know,

I'll send my mailing address...and postage!

Did I mention I like doilies?

I Detest Hand Sewing...

That may come as a great surprise to many but give me a machine and I will sew up a storm.  The hand work can go to someone else.

I was trained as a child to embroider and piece quilts but never liked it.  My stitches were like a drunken path.  I did discover crochet and made rugs,scarves and afghans.  There is where the joy lay, it moved faster and I did not have to thread a needle.

I have sewn many things in my lifetime including my finger with an old treadle sewing machine.  When the girls were small I would lay them down on material and cut around them to make a pattern.  It worked well.  I have made Halloween costumes, play costumes and even sewed some hunting items that hubby would see in a magazine and ask me to make...just from the picture.  I did it.  I have sewn Pioneer Dresses for our yearly contest, I have made curtains and dog clothes.  All with a machine.

Quilting was also something I was trained to do and the beauty of them was amazing but not when I did it.  My goal was to enlarge the pattern and make fewer blocks, all by machine.  I have hand quilted on a quilting frame and hand tacked many quilts.  Not something I do to relax.

Now give me a pattern or not, it doesn't really matter and I will whip out a quilt top in a day...and it will be artistic and interesting and one of a kind.  I made five home made quilts one year for my daughter's friends when they graduated high school. I also made all "new" seat covers for my daughter's car using old jeans.  I make purses and yard quilts from old jeans with out one hand stitch.

Neither one of my girls sew.  They have shown me pictures of curtains, balloon valances and drapes and asked me to make them...I did...all by machine.

Tonight I had to sew by hand, ugh, but it was a good thing.  A patch has been hand sewn for the daughter that is training in the nursing field.  I could not find a thimble, I could not see well to thread the needle, I believe I was bleeding when I finished but the patch in on.  I must teach them to sew!

Sewing was a different thing for Mom and Grandma.  They had such great pleasure piecing  a quilt and such beautiful quilts they were.  All their stitches were perfect, all the same length and in a perfectly straight line.  Amazing.  Mom sewed all my dresses from the flour sacks when I was small and I still remember how proud I was of them. Grandma's patching should be in a museum!

All three of us, my sisters and I, sewed our own clothes for school.  In fact, I remember sewing some elephant leg pants with a sailor top, complete with tie the night they first walked on the moon.

Give me a glue gun, staple gun, duct tape and I can build anything but please, don't make me hand sew one single item.

I don't sew much any more.  It is not a real joy of mine but it is a good talent to have.

I will paint, I will write, I will draw, I will sew by machine, I will crochet and create with saws, hammers, drills, and dremils but please, never make me sew.

...and all this came out because I sewed one patch by hand.