Catch 22

Don't you find that life is full of contradictions? Mine is. It is like a Catch 22. You can't win for losing. Especially the Lupus part of my life. The strangest part to me is that the medications I take keep my immune system at a barely functioning level to keep my body from fighting its' self. It seems that my body doesn't like its' own cells and feels compelled to stage a full out war on otherwise seemingly innocent cells. It is a major contradiction at the core of my health. So the collective doctors in their infinite wisdom have decided that the best way to deal with this is to kill the protective immune system to stop it from attacking healthy cells. This seems a little backwards to me, but who am I to argue with "the doctors"? The biggest side effect of this kind of treatment is that those soldier cells whose job is to protect are now dwindling in number and protective power. So along comes a little cold virus that should be wiped out with very little trouble, but it just storms past those wimpy sedated soldiers and takes over my body like a wicked step mother moving in.

Guess who has a horrid cold? Ya, me. It is going on something like 14 days. Doctor has me on antibiotics for the resident sinus infection. Ugh. Just to illustrate how rotten I have felt...today is the first day in that long I have sewn anything. And I only put the binding on a baby quilt.

Well, it is the cutest little Baby mermaid quilt.

But now I am exhausted an think I will sleep for another 16 hours. Goodnight.

A Magical Mystery Tour

This is the Fabric Store Copy: Birds and Swirls.
I just love the bordering bird fabric.
These fabrics are from the In The Beginning Collection This is what happens when you buy a bundle of the prettiest soothing fabrics and just have to put something together. Ahhhhhh.

Do you remember my little Heather Ross Free Spirit Mermaid Fabric? I have sparingly used some of it to create this adorable baby quilt. Then I quilted it with loops and swirls. It is great.

This Jettson-like Baby Quilt is kind of hard to explain. The fabric was $2. Does that make sense to you? Either you get it or you don't.

First, I am posting pictures of some of the projects that I am working on currently. Second, this is off label, but I had to write a background letter of introduction for a class I am taking. I thought it was somewhat humorous; I am posting it here, so you can see how strange I am. Just in case you thought I might be a normal person.

The year of 1978 impacted me in many different ways. At the time, I would have never guessed that the new strange movie series of Star Wars was something that thirty some years later would still be filling my home with the dreadful “…dum dum dum, da-de-dum da-de-dum” music as my own children play and re-play the popular movies. Somehow I would have guessed then that it would have been the Cassidy Brothers singing "Da Doo Run Run", but I guess I must have thrown away that beautiful flowing haired scholastic poster of Shawn Cassidy.

Jim Jones proved to be a very motivational leader in the very sad mass suicide of his followers that year—I personally vowed that year to never again drink kool-aid which my sister made (just in case). But the most motivational leader in my life that year was the leather-patched, brown leisure suited Mr. Patridge of my fifth grade classroom. Mr. Patridge inspired me with a life-long mission to teach kids. He had a real knack for reaching out to kids and finding them where they were and then helping them move forward. I learned to read in the fifth grade. I must have read my library favorite “Mio My Son” two or three times, although the library card would look like it had been many more times, since it was my name scrawled on it again and again (except when that awful Kelly Johnson would request it from the librarian just to get me riled up). Next week, when it was my turn again I would neatly darken my name repeatedly on the lines and leave Kelly Johnson’s name insignificantly light. That thick side-burned Mr. Patridge changed the course of my life that year. He instilled in me the vision of what a great teacher could be, and created in me an unending desire to be just like him—minus the short fat tie.

Fast forward quite a few years, I followed my heart and graduated from college prepared to teach and immediately went to work in a fifth grade class in California. A new taller, darker, and more handsome love in my life lead me through wedding bells to Idaho State University where I returned to school. First comes love, second comes marriage, and third comes…well...a series of 4 babies in baby carriages over the course of the next 10 years. My education served me and my family at home for the following years as I taught and nurtured our family from home until they were each in school.

My teaching experience has been rather sporadic since then with several part time and full time gigs primarily in the reading area as well as substitute teaching. I now work full time at an online and catalog gift shop for Fly Fishermen. Yes, “Unique Gifts for Unique People”—a slightly unusual turn in my career, but technically challenging. My job now requires a much higher development of technical training in web design and e-commerce than I have, so I am constantly in a different type of classroom, just to keep things going smoothly for all those great Fly Fishermen that fill my days now.


I currently have an Oregon Teaching license which I keep current, in hopes of someday returning to the traditional classroom when the time is right. And hopefully, when that day comes, I will be able to find that glossy wind-blown Shawn Cassidy poster to hang proudly in my classroom in honor of Mr. Patridge and all that the year of 1978 stood for to me.

Breaking Up is Hard To Do

Today I said goodbye to this Mint Chocolate Chip Beauty. It is not easy to end a quilting relationship. She was lovingly packed up and sent to South Korea with one final farewell. I started this quilt last year and played with it off and on and then finished it in a flourish. Not nearly enough time to get used to the idea of breaking up and saying goodbye. Lucky for me, there is a small twin-lette Mint Chocolate Chip Quilt that sits folded up in my drawer to occupy me when I feel the urge to have another scoop. It is the end of something and the beginning of something with leftovers. I hope it will be as patient as its' predecessor with my scattered loving attention.

Saying farewell got me thinking, I currently have several Pretties waiting for homes. My kids would have you believe they are in desperate need of another quilt, but I need quilting fabric more than they need another quilt....right?!? Well...I think so.

So, the following quilts are available. Let me know if you are interested in purchasing one of them--we can work something out. You can have your own strange relationship with a quilt....

Pink Floral Fantasy:
A Double White & Pink Female looking for a lasting relationship with someone who loves to snuggle. A real blushing beauty.
Yours Truly, The Gadabout:
A Throw Sized Flashing Showgirl, Looking for a long term relationship with a couch potato.

My Life's Ups and Downs Quilt should be on this list, along with the Smoothy Quilt, but I just can't bring myself to post them. Let me know if you can't live without one of them. That seems to be how it is for me and creating a quilt: I get so connected. I read somewhere someone said that they hated to send their quilts away to strangers--it is much better knowing they are going to be loved somewhere familiar, I think. My two girlfriend who have my quilts were super easy to give to. I know they appreciate the work and love investment. And familymembers are also very easy to send a quilt home with, plus you can always check in on your beauties to see how they are holding up. Speaking of which, I just visited my sisters Birds and Swirls. That is such a pretty quilt. It was created to pair with a beautiful Asian painting for her bedroom and bordered with hand embroidered birds. I still need to get a picture of that one and share it!

Tonight has been an interesting restless night. First assembled a Fig Tree Quilt creation which I copied fabric choices and pattern from the fancy fabric store I love to visit and leave money at. OOOO, just wait til I get my camera on that one. Then I created mega blocks by assembling smaller stained glass hour glass blocks to get a feel for how that quilt is going to look. Soon enough I moved on and created a pattern for one quilt--worked it out and then started the quilt. Finally I cut charm squares out of this wonderful fabric combo that I have been oogle-ing for weeks and sewed together a stack of them to get a feel for that new quilt creation. None of these projects have ANYTHING to do with my recently hung "inspiration piece". Maybe it is just inspiring me to try something different....I think it is just hard to settle back in after the big break up with me and Mint Chocolate Chip.