checking in on a Tuesday

Pippi at the watering hole......silly girl has to hop up to drink but at least she is getting some exercise doing it. With her recent kidney filtration problem, I worry if she is NOT drinking but also if she is drinking TOO much as that would be a symptom of worsening lab values.


See that priority box right behind her? The patriotic fabric that awaits me and the row blocks I will be working on this week. Some of that box space is the top as it exists so far but I do have a nice stack of themed fabric there, thanks to my mom. Betsy had asked for "Patriotic/Stars" and RWB fabrics but golds and off white are okay. Turns out a blue I picked up at Walmart yesterday for binding on another quilt might also work too. I know which blocks I want to do especially since I confirmed that they don't have all be stars. Coincidentally, the Nancy J. Martin perpetual calendar that sits atop my computer monitor has some nice blocks that fit the theme right now---not saying that I am using them or not but some good inspiration and color placement to be had there!


The quilt group met yesterday for the first time in a month--missing a few yesterday and others arriving closer to lunch time. Theramae and I put away the fabric my mom had shared with us and the stuff I weeded from my stash. She found a piece that will make a nice Snuggle Up when combined with a green leftover from Nancy's Boot Scootin' Boogie and "that gold" vein tone on tone. Good!!

I had pictures to take since 10 quilts were turned in with binding completed. We plan on laying the quilts out in the sanctuary at the end of July so we are definitely in the home stretch. Just hanging the quilts up to photo them is like having our own little quilt show meeting to meeting. Plenty of "oohs and aahs" and "who made that one?" Fortunately I did not have the metal rod come down and pop me on the top of my head this time.

The tractor quilt was donated by one of our quilting friends from another group. Turns out that group had done the tractor block as their block raffle recently and Nancy A won some of them. She wanted the resultant quilt to go to the Boy's Ranch. The back is really neat too as she used scrappy plaid flannel. It is hand quilted to boot!


We pinned 4 more and had some consultation about quilt backing on a resized donation tops as it needed to be a tad bigger and something that might work was at home. Judy was the only one with a machine yesterday though I could have retrieved mine from the car had I been so inclined---working on a split nine patch in patriotic colors but a limited pallette. I think it is going to make a striking quilt.

I may have shown you this top before---Aline was working on it at the Spring Sew-In intending to make a Snuggle Up. She missed the step about making a loop and then taking it apart at stair stepping intervals. If she didn't want to sew them together just to take them apart again, I told her all was not lost--try the staggered half

step drop. I had done that with rectangles in the past as shown in the quilt below and it works out pretty well. Anyway, you could almost call this one "Happy Accident". Aline's granddaughter was with her yesterday The two of them were working on a quilt for Sydney's mom but Aline added that she would like to make another one just like this but larger for Sydney's brother, LOL. Sydney already has her quilt but I cannot remember which pattern was chosen for it.

Oh, oh---DJ is stuck on hold with the SS/Medicare/health insurance drug plan company again. This is not good news. He is old enough for the Medicare drug program that was instituted last year for seniors but dropped coverage in late November. He can do much better with 4 buck generics than the plan he had so "thanks, but no thanks". No problem with the insurance company he is out. SS and Medicare could screw up a one float parade. They continue to take the payment out of his SS check 6 months after the fact. SS says it is Medicare's fault while Medicare blame it on SS. Meanwhile he cannot get them to stop taking the money out and secondarily, give him his money back---about 400 bucks now. Each month since the first of the year he has called all parties concerned. I sense a bad day in the making here with a griping husband to contend with. Ready to write those letters to our illustrious congressional delegation yet??? He cannot be the only one in all the United States with this complaint.

I'll round up some template plastic and try to lay low