Quilting and Other Hobbies

After a great deal of swearing, I was able to finish Lauri's quilt.  The machine was having some issues with tension and speed control.  The stitch regulator is having some issues again.  It broke the thread about a dozen times around the middle of the quilt.  Ugh!  I rethreaded it a couple of times and it started behaving in the last third of the job.  I'm going to work with it a bit longer and see if it continues to have problems before I take it in for repair.

Here's a close up of the quilt that I took in a puddle of sunshine coming in the windows.  It's so sparkley!!

Once I got the last customer's quilt off the racks, I decided I wanted to get one of my quilts done up right away.  I dug around in the bins and came up with this floral fabric to add to the back.  It was absolutely perfect!  I couldn't have found a better quilt back if I had started with it and matched fabrics to it.  Not sure what I'll do with it when I'm done.  I have far too many quilts lying around that aren't getting used, though.  This is a twin size, by the way.  Maybe Emma will want a new one, although I still have to finish her Japanese quilt--it just needs a binding.

I had to piece the back to make it large enough.  One thing that people don't always realize is that you need to sew a generous 1/2" seam and trim the selvages.  The edges of the fabrics are often woven differently and will shrink differently when washed and dried, so trimming that 1/4" off the edge is important.  You don't want your work to end up puckered.

I've been having a long debate about whether or not to continue this quilting & crafting business.  I'm not making any significant income from it and I'm tired.  I could still quilt things for friends, but do it in trade or something.  According to what I could find, if I earn more than $400 in a year, I have to declare it.  But what about someone who does occasional babysitting?  A couple of days a month, you earn $20 per night from a friend who goes out on a date with her husband, and you have to declare that as income?

We have a problem with one of the newer windows that we had installed in Emma's room.  I don't know if it was installed incorrectly or if something broke off, but it's got a massive breeze coming through when the window is closed.  You can see daylight.  It's bad.  I put in a call to the handyman a couple days ago but I haven't heard back from him yet.  Maybe I need to try calling again since I left a message...relying on technology...which can be rather unreliable.  We've got a cold snap moving into the area and may possibly be snowing this weekend, so getting her room weather-tight is important.

I have one more side of Grandma's flower garden quilt to finish up.  No, she's not my Grandma--my grandmothers both died in 1987 and 89--I'm talking about our church's Father's mother.  It's very close to being done, so I need to work a bit more tomorrow and maybe give the owner a call tomorrow afternoon so she can pick it up and enjoy it!

The last couple of days, I have to make a bunch of beads for the Lampworker's Guild as well as a dozen or so I'm making for a commission.  Since I posted pictures, I've gotten a few more people asking to buy beads.  Maybe I need to switch from quilting to bead making?  I also need to make a handout and samples for a class I'm teaching on Saturday.  The class is called "Sewing Limp Parchment Books" using paper and string.  Woo.

Day Six at Kinder Haus

I had the weekend off to get out of the hospital and relax a little.  Friday night was pretty quiet as my mother in law had taken the two girls for the weekend.  I threw the laundry in the wash, drank a cider, and caught up on my favorite reality shows:  Mystery Diners, Amazing Race, and Restaurant Stakeout (which is essentially the same as Mystery Diners).

Slept late, showered, and dressed up for the event and feast on Saturday.  Midhaven was hosting a pair of Royals for their event, where guests were making hats, books and kid kits for Kingdom largesse (gifts for the Royals to hand out to visiting dignitaries, contest winners, and people who help them out especially during their reign).  I made a Viking coif and a soft leather bound book like the ones found at Nag Hammadi.  These books were fairly easy to make, although the stitching the quires into the leather was a bit more challenging for me--the lighting was a bit dim and I had dark leather, so I couldn't see the pre-punched holes very well.  This would be easy enough to make with leather scraps from Tandy or even ultrasuede from the local fabric store.  The paper she used inside was regular typing paper.  I'll have to make some of these again--they were really cool!  The history of these texts is really interesting--the original finder took them home and someone in the family started using these ancient things as firestarter!  It was later translated and found to be a rather unusual translation of the bible with additional stories (like Jesus had a brother named James).  Fascinating stuff.


Got home late Saturday after talking with Mom on the phone.  Watched some of my other shows--CSI: NY and 48 Hours.  Slept a bunch more and finished the laundry I needed to re-pack for the hospital.  Sleepy type of Sunday, packing, cutting some 2' x 5" rectangles for quilt blocks that I will be working on this week, and hopefully I can get the quilt top assembled in the next couple of days.  I don't know how big this quilt is going to be in the end...I was thinking about making it twin size, but with the extra blocks, it may end up being more full size.  I may have to arrange the blocks to make sure that the layout is attractive with 49 patches in each corner.  I don't need to make it 100" long, though, since the twin size beds all have foot boards that don't work well with long quilts.  Probably 80" long is plenty, and these are 10" blocks, so I'm thinking I need a 5 x 7 grid...35 blocks with 6" borders...that'll be 62" x 82".  Perfect.

Now I'm back at the hospital and they've been testing the little guy's glucose levels which have been erratic during the overnight feeds.  During the day they seem to be normal, but when they do the night feeds, his numbers shoot up to 200-300.  Not sure what that's about, but it could be CF related diabetes.  This is when the pancreas is sluggish from all the inflammation and the islets aren't excreting insulin when it's needed.  By morning, when the night feed is finishing, his numbers have been back up to normal, so they have talked to us about the possibility of introducing a small amount of insulin at the beginning of the feed to help absorb the sugars at the beginning of the feed until the pancreas can kick in.  Great.  Just one more thing.  Let's bring up the medicine count to a nice round dozen, K?

Surgery tomorrow.  Pray that all goes as smoothly as the first four times they did this same surgery and that he'll be back in the room without complications.