I Didn't Think I HAD Muscles!

Last night I slept with ice on my shoulder/neck--at least for awhile--and then I laid on my back, very, very straight, all night long. When I got up this morning, I felt better . . . for about a half hour. After moving around a bit, though, the pain came back. Darn!

Jury duty was very brief today, and after we were released, I headed to the office where I made an afternoon appointment with my doctor. There I found that my pain problems seem to be muscular in nature because all of my parts moved the way they were supposed to move (as directed by the doctor) without too much pain. So that's good, right?

The doctor gave me some muscle relaxants to take in the evening and told me to also take my horse-pill sized Motrin tablets with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When I got home after that, I took a muscle relaxant and haven't noticed much difference except that I want to crawl into bed and go to sleep. I can see that taking muscle relaxants every night may well cut into my blogging for a bit, so don't worry if you don't hear anything from me sometimes over the next couple weeks. I'm just sleeping. Besides, I'm also not doing much sewing right now, so you're not missing much there either.

Oh, and if I post complete gibberish some evenings? You'll just know that I've taken a muscle relaxant and thrown caution to the winds. Then you can pretend I've posted the wittiest, most interesting blog posts ever, okay? 'Cause that's what friends are for.

I've Been Better . . .

Boy, you get a year older and stuff starts falling apart. Okay, to be honest, stuff started falling apart years ago.

This time, though, it's my neck/upper back/right shoulder and arm. It started stiffening up and aching last Friday when I took a break from jury duty and went into the office. Can I really have gotten out of prime typing shape in just a few days?

Well, I DID work late on Friday, so I put in something like a ten-hour typing day, but there have been plenty of times when I didn't type for a few days and then DID--and typed overtime too--and lived to tell about it. So I don't know if it's THAT--the typing--or not.

Then, I thought it might be starting to feel a little better this afternoon, but I had to go spoil it all by going back into the office to type for another three hours.

Seriously, it may just be my imagination. No, not the pain; just the idea that it's caused by typing/work. Maybe it's just that the typing/work makes me notice the pain more. Anyway, I think I might not write a blog for a couple days if it keeps hurting.

I suspect muscle relaxants and jury duty wouldn't pair well. That's probably just as well, since I'd have to find time to get away from jury duty to see the doctor to get the muscle relaxants. In the meantime, I'll try heat, ice, and ibuprofen and see if that helps. I'll be back when I can.

Sometimes It's Hard

Sometimes it's hard to get in some quality sewing time. Hubby's been awfully sick this weekend--I think it's the flu--and that means I've had to take on a few nursing duties. Poor guy--I hope he's feeling better soon!

Then, too, the excitement of some of the Olympics events makes it difficult to concentrate on sewing. But really, all of those distractions pale in comparison to having someone lay on your arm while you're trying to sew.

Nevertheless, I've finished the latest Harrington and Hannah block. Cute, isn't it?

And I've begun the next project--but I can see it might take awhile at this rate.

Some cats like to lay on the quilts. My cat likes to lay on the quilter.

A Day Late . . .

That saying concludes with "and a dollar short," but I don't think it applies here, does it? If one was to say that quilting costs money--and it does, of course--it would be much more than a dollar, but then the satisfaction is so great, it's completely worth the money.

So, anyway, here's my Comfort & Joy block--a day late.

Have you been watching the Olympics? I was thinking that with the Olympics on, I'll get a lot of quilting done, because I'll be completely happy sitting in front of the TV as much as possible. But then it occurred to me that I'll probably be distracted by the events, sitting on the edge of my seat to see who'll win each one, so all in all, I'm not sure whether the Olympics will spur me on or sidetrack me! How about you? Are you watching?

P.S.: Santa is still eyeless because I'm leaning toward giving him button eyes which will have to be added after the quilting. Just thought you'd want to know.

Close, But No Cigar!

July 28th. Time to reveal the fourth block of the Comfort & Joy quilt. You'll likely recall that I've been playing catch up on this one because I waffled for a couple months before deciding to take the plunge.

I THOUGHT I'd have it done. Of course, I didn't think I'd work late tonight and then be so tired I can barely keep my eyes open--sometimes Friday nights are like that, aren't they? So I didn't finish. So close, but yet so far. I still have a small applique block to make--just a bird with an embroidered sign; probably about two hours worth of work.

I DID get the main part of the block done, except for Santa's eyes, and I haven't quite decided on those yet. At least I can show you this:

I'll probably have the block finished this weekend and I'll show you the entire block four when I finish. In the meantime, you can visit Anne's blog, Cottons 'n Wool, and click to view the blocks by the other participants from there. (As I write this, she hasn't posted yet, but I know she will, so if you arrive a bit early for the reveal, check back with her a little later in the day.)

Week Two Over

Week two of jury duty is over--tomorrow (today, really, by the time you read this) I go back to work for a day, and then I return to the courthouse on Monday. It's actually kind of interesting, so I can't complain.

I can't tell you about the trial I'm on, but I can tell you about other courthouse happenings.

Most of the time, I've had lunch in the court cafeteria, and there are several attorneys I see there every day who are from out of town. The senior attorney looks familiar to me, but I don't know why--I have no idea even if they are involved in a civil case or not, but I think they are. Anyway, there's this senior male attorney who I'd guess is probably in his 50s; he's a big powerful guy with a commanding presence and gray hair. Then there's a female attorney, probably in her late 30s or early 40s, who seems to be a stereotypical east coast (i.e., New York or New Jersey) personality. Finally, there's an older guy who doesn't wear a suit and seems more like either the client or an investigator.

The first day, I overheard the female attorney telling someone that as she was leaving the courtroom, she fell down and banged her knee. She denied the fall had anything to do with the high heels she was wearing, but today, a week and a half later, I noticed she was wearing flats. Also today, she was trying to find her missing cell phone--she last remembered having it in the ladies bathroom because she set it down to wash her hands. I always have to wonder about people taking their cell phones into the bathroom, but she's very attached to hers. The other day, she put her phone on speaker and played back all of her messages rather audibly until the senior male attorney walked over and suggested it wasn't appropriate in a crowded cafeteria. Seriously, she seems like a really ditzy redhead to me.

And the senior attorney? He often sits at a separate table, going through a binder of documents, preparing for the afternoon trial session. That first day, he got up and walked over to the female attorney and directed her to get him a cup of coffee. Seriously?!! I thought that kind of thing ended a couple decades ago! Today they were all sitting together but had to move to a different table, and the female attorney carried the male attorney's suit jacket. I've developed a pretty strong dislike of these people.

For their sake, and the sake of their client, I sure hope there aren't any jurors from THEIR trial observing what I have. I wonder if the arrogance of the male attorney and the idiocy of the female attorney comes across in the courtroom?

Speaking of idiocy, the first or second day I was down there, we were all waiting in the hallway after lunch when the bailiff from another courtroom called his prospective jurors back into court. A little while later, he came back out and called a specific name--the name of a woman. Ten minutes later, he came out and called again. Up until that point, we weren't paying too much attention, but about ten minutes after that, we couldn't help but notice--and overhear--the same bailiff talking to a panicked and flustered woman outside the doors to the courtroom. We rather shamelessly tuned into the conversation and heard the woman explain that she'd gone down to the jury room during lunch and somehow became so engrossed in a jigsaw puzzle, she completely forgot to pay attention to the time! Consequently, she was 45 minutes late--and we jurors already get a 90 minute lunch break each day! Isn't that crazy? I just can't imagine forgetting to pay attention to the time like that, can you?!

As I've found, the courthouse is an interesting place to people watch. I'm sure I'll have a couple more stories to share by the time this is done.

Deep Fried Cheese Curds

Yep, you're right--it's state fair time again! Every year, there are two things I absolutely have to include in my state fair visit: Fair food and quilts. And most of the time, for whatever reason, I pass up the fried foods on a stick, but my blood pressure was a little on the low side a couple weeks ago, so I figured I should "fix" it with some deep fried fair food.

Hubby and I started out with sandwiches--me with a pulled pork and him with a pastrami. As we sat and ate, we surveyed the other food choices. I seriously was thinking: "Hey, what food here sounds interesting and absolutely cannot be bought at any other place, at any other time," and the deep fried cheese curds pretty much raised their greasy little hands and said eat me.

And we did. They were pretty good too!

Here's the other thing we went for. Rabbit Transit was on display with an honorable mention.

But besides that, I took a few photos so I could share them with you. First are a couple overviews so you can see how the displays were set up. And, of course, there are some beautiful quilts to be seen in these as well.

Hubby didn't really "get" the cow quilt but I thought it was funny. Besides that, I thought it was so similar to the cow quilt I took a photo of at the Verna Mosquera retreat that the two quilters must have taken the same class from Mary Lou Weidman.

I loved this rabbit quilt--of course, I DO like some nice rabbits! Do any of you recognize the pattern, perhaps? I think it would be great fun to make.

Hubby and I found ourselves looking at this display and commenting on how much we liked the piece, what the artist had done, and the number of awards. The funny thing is that after a couple minutes, we realized we were each talking about a different piece! I liked the small footstool on the right and Hubby was awed by the horn table on the left.

How could he like a horn table so much but dis a cow quilt? Men! Who can understand them? It almost made me not want to share my deep fried cheese curds with him!

By the way, what's your favorite fair food?

Merry Again!

As I was finishing the embroidery tonight on the latest Merry, Merry Snowmen block, I was thinking that considering I have so much time for sewing while on jury duty, I don't seem to be accomplishing anything as quickly as I thought I would. I know--I still manage to get a lot done. I agree. But I really thought I'd get more done with an hour or two of dedicated sewing time at the courthouse each day. AND I get home from work earlier too! What's going on?

I think it's been a few things. My birthday for one. I love celebrating and we've been doing just that for the past week. A day out with a friend last Saturday. Shopping for a few new things to wear on Sunday. Dinner out on Monday. Then the Wild Child came through on Tuesday night. (She had been in the Boston area for a friend's wedding, flew back into Reno, and was driving back up to Humboldt when she stopped in here to join us for dinner out and to load up a few more of her things.)

Then there's the fact that there's a lot of down time in jury duty that's still not very good for applique--like when we're waiting on the chairs in the hallway outside the courtroom; not knowing when we'll be called back in makes it harder to pull out the stitching supplies. Also, there's no surface to work on and the lighting is a little iffy.

I think I'll try to make a little more effort though. And, of course, things will calm down a bit now, I suspect. But probably not tomorrow--I'm still celebrating, and tomorrow I'm going out to lunch with a friend. And after I'm done at court, Hubby and I are going to the fair.

Oh, well. Now that I think about it, there are things that are a lot more fun AND a bit more important than getting applique blocks done quickly.

Here's the latest Merry, Merry Snowmen block. Without all the button and ribbon embellishments that will be added after quilting, it looks a little plain for now, but it's going to be a cute one when the quilt's done.

The Rest of the Story

Sometimes stuff happens and I think, "Oh, I have to tell this story on the blog!" And then I don't. Something else comes up, time passes, and I forget. This is one of those stories I meant to tell you about before.

Back when I was at the Verna Mosquera retreat and blogging from the hotel's business center, I wrote this in one of my posts: "It's a little after 9 p.m. on Saturday night and I'm ready to take a shower and turn in a little early. (Besides, I have a little chocolatty goodness waiting for me on my nightstand alongside my book--some English toffee I picked up at a sweet shop today.)"

After I returned to my hotel room, I took a bath, put my jammies on, and got into bed with my book. After reading for about ten minutes, I reached into the little white paper bag from the sweet shop and broke off a small chunk of English toffee. Yummy! My favorite! Except that when I chewed, I bit down on what I thought was a fragment of walnut shell. I removed it from my mouth and discarded it; I thought, "It's a darn good thing I didn't bite down harder and break a tooth!"

Guess what? No, I didn't break a tooth; not exactly. Not as I thought, anyway. Because what I bit down on wasn't a walnut shell either--it was either a piece of filling or a piece of tooth. I didn't notice it at first, but a little while later, my tongue discovered a hole where there used to be tooth. ARGH!

The damaged tooth was an upper molar--the second one in from the back. I planned to call my dentist that Monday and have it fixed, but when I returned to work after a two-day vacation, my desk was buried, so I thought I'd see the dentist on Tuesday instead. Except I was called in for jury duty on Tuesday. And you know how that went, right? So on Wednesday, I called the dentist and arranged to see him on Friday, when I knew I wouldn't be in court. In the meantime, I ate only fairly soft food and chewed everything on the other side so I didn't further damage the tooth.

It all worked out okay in the end. I'll probably need a crown someday, but for now, my dentist thought a filling would do.

Do you ever have those dreams where your teeth start to disintegrate into chalky dust? Yes, I had at least one of those dreams last week. I asked the dentist, and he said it's a fairly common dream. Pretty disturbing, really. But probably not quite disturbing enough to make me pass up the English toffee the next time I wander into a sweet shop.

A Border Tutorial

A couple people asked me how to make the border I added to this Schnibbles quilt:

Remember that? It's a border treatment that I think can add a lot to the look of a quilt--and can also be used as sashing--so I thought I'd take a few minutes to show you how I do it.

The sample I'm going to demonstrate has the colors reversed, with the black fabric as the backgrounds/setting triangles. First, you'll sew the squares together, background fabrics on either side of the fabrics that will form the diamond centers. Press the seams toward the darker fabric.

Here I have the three sections lined up in the positions they'll be sewn--see how they're offset from one another?

Next, sew them together, matching up the seams. If you've pressed your fabric to the darker fabric in each group of three squares, then the seams will be pressed in opposite directions, allowing the strips to snug up against one another at the seam lines.

I've done these steps out of order a bit, but let me show you my photos and then I'll tell you what I should have done differently. In this next photo, I've lined up my ruler so that the tips of the colored squares are at the quarter inch mark on the ruler, so I can cut off the excess and leave a quarter inch seam allowance. Then I trimmed away that excess black fabric.

Now, here's what I should have done before trimming--sewn background squares to each end of the colored center square. Because I forgot, I had to trim those separately, so it was an extra step.

Finally, after trimming and leaving a quarter inch all the way around, this is the section I ended up with:

Now, you may well want to know how to calculate how long your border section will turn out so you know how many squares to cut. I'm pretty good with math, but even so, I find it difficult to calculate more than just a guesstimate of the length. It's the old A squared plus B squared equals C squared that makes my head want to explode. So what I do is to start sewing the border and when it looks like it might be getting long enough, I'll take some measurements and figure out how many more squares I'll need to add. (Just to give you a rough idea of what you'll be working with, the original squares were cut at 2-1/2" to finish at 2"; the three square section above now measures 8-3/4" not including the two quarter inch seam allowances on each end.) We would always want to make the border section the same or slightly longer than the center of the quilt. Once we know how much longer the border is, we can add more background strips around the outside of the center of the quilt to bring it up to the size of the borders. The first couple times you try this, I'd recommend adding wider background strips to make the center a little bigger than you'll need and then trimming off what you don't need once you have a final measurement--it's much easier than finding you're still too short if you forget to take into consideration things like seam allowances.

I hope this gives you a new idea to play around with.