Ricky Tims' Quilt Is Found!

Ricky's quilt is safe and sound today.  Click here to read about it.

Can you help Ricky Tims?

Ricky Tims just returned from Dubai and United Airlines lost one of his bags. It didn't make it onto the flight from Chicago to Colorado.  In the bag was this quilt.  He needs help contacting someone at United Airlines in the US (he keeps getting switched to someone in India) to find the bag and the quilt.  Click here to read his blog and keep your eye out for his quilt if you can!

Stitchin Time

With this "lovely" weather we're having, I've been sitting in my new recliner stitching away. I found these really nice vintage ornments and ordered all 18 for the shop . . . I was going to do a trunk show and then had the wild and crazy thought that I'd just make them and then I'd have my own samples done. Yes, sometimes I am absolutely, positively out of my ever lovin mind. I have one completely finished, the second one stitched but it needs to be sewn into the ornament and today I totally switched gears and stitched a towel with a baby chick and some flowers on it for spring.

I'm beading my ornaments along with stitching them. I like the glitz that beads add. My friend Sandy gave me a button at quilt market one year that says "Easily Distracted By Bright Shiny Objects" - describes me to a "T"! I love the flash & shine of glitz. But as another friend Lauren, says, there's a fine line between flashy and trashy!

I like to stitch. I've done embroidery since I was small. Both my grandmothers did embroidery, my mom's mom switched over to liquid embroidery when her arthritis got too bad - remember liquid embroidery? They stitched table cloths, bureau scarves, doilies and all kinds of linens. I was probably the only freshmen who went to Unity College in the fall of 75' with an embroidered bureau scarf - there's no probably about it, I definitely was. I still have it some thirty years later. It's a little worse for wear but I remember how proud my Nana was of me when I went off to college that year and I think of her every time I use it.  This is a picture of Grammy, me (look at that hair!) and Nana at my college graduation.  Both were pleased as punch that day and this picture always makes me smile.

I'm hoping that whoever I give these ornaments to, they'll think of me & smile every time they put them on their Christmas tree.  They'll make nice memories I hope and isn't that one of the reasons we stitch?

Yes, we have a little snow . . .

20" of snow as a matter of fact.  On Monday we had robins in the front yard - about 40 of them digging in the mailbox garden and generally having a good time.

Yesterday it snowed like crazy. This was the view of my mailbox garden & out the back door yesterday. 

I hope the robins found someplace to hide out during the storm!

Phew! We made it!

The wedding is over, the dinner for 40 was held and everyone had a good time, mom is settling in & all of us are recovering from a great weekend of friends and family.

I've discovered a few things about weddings that I can share:

1.  Make your own bridal veil.  I bought a very plain one and altered it to what she wanted.  For what I paid, I could have bought a whole bolt of bridal tulle & comb and still gone out to dinner.  Before you buy, check out what they have, you'll be stunned.  Anyone with basic crafting skills can make a simple veil and save money.  The ones I saw had laces hot glued on, no edgings and huge whip stitches holding the tulle to to comb.

2.  Wear comfortable shoes!  I balked at the last minute and didn't wear the high heels I was planning on.  Instead I dug an old pair out of the back of the closet & they ended up in the trash can outside the hotel.  I kicked them off 30 seconds after the ceremony, jammed them back on my feet to walk into the reception and then they spent the rest of the night under the table.  I now sport HUGE bandaides that cover up HOLES in my heels.

3.  Invite lots of family and friends.  It's a wonderful time best celebrated by people you love.  Our relatives live in Minnesota, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Arizona & Florida, we have none in NJ.  You go along everyday without cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers or sisters in your everyday life and then when you're surrounded by them, you realize how much you love & miss them.  Here's Sara with most of her Minnesota aunts and her Massachusetts aunts.

4.  Beautiful weddings can be planned in a short amount of time.  I would probably have gone crazy if I had to deal with Sara the bride for more than a year . . . .  three months was a good time table.

5.  Wear something comfortable!  I HATE pantyhose (I'll put a bet a man invented them!) and I should have gotten knee his (which on top of me wearing pants, would have totally mortified the bride if she found out. . .)  Sara wanted me in a beaded gown, I wore a fancy jacket & camisole with those plazzo pants.  Very elegant I thought and very comfortable - if I hadn't ditched the shoes, I would have ditched the pantyhose!

6. Don't miss the opportunity to mortify a nephew.  This is my godson John.  He's 13 and while I'm sure he loves us, he also thinks we are all totally nutso, me especially I think, although I am sure I'm running neck and neck with my older brother.  There was bouncy music on from the 50s and I was standing next to John bopping along to the music, mortifying him just by standing by him doing it - what else could I do but haul him out to the dance floor????  Here he is pleading with his parents to rescue him.

7.  Enjoy yourself immensely.  The day goes by so fast & before you know it, it's over & everyone is heading home.

8.  No matter how much you worry something will go wrong - it doesn't and even if it does?  No one notices and everyone has a wonderful time.  Relax and enjoy the day!

The Countdown!

This coming weekend is THE busiest weekend of the month, heck probably of the year. On Thurs, relatives start arriving for the Sunday wedding, Friday more arrive and Sat the rest of them arrive - including my Mom who is being released from the rehab in the morning and then coming down with my older brother & sister-in-law. We'll get her settled in as best we can in the midst of the all the wedding hoopla. Poor woman, I hope she's napping as much as she can all this week, we're having 40 for dinner Sat night!

Today we go have the final fitting of the dress and pick it up and I am sure Sara has plans for me to be doing something every day for the rest of the week. Somewhere in there I need to get my haircut & go to the store and teach classes . . . .

Saturday is also the rehearsal breakfast and the breakfast. Family dinner Saturday night - first time my children have ever had all their aunts and uncles in one place since most live in Minnesota with the rest in Massachusetts and Florida. Then Sunday morning I plan on doing absolutely NOTHING no matter what Sara says - my mom and I will be napping!

We've discovered that on Sunday the Jets game is at 1:30 and the Minnesota Vikings play at 8pm for playoff spots. Since we live in NJ and remember I said most of the relatives live in Minnesota - I am sure there will be a well worn path between the reception hall, where I've banned TVs, to the TV in the bar!

By Monday morning, I'll be ready for a vacation!

What good is a thumb?

Plenty I've discovered. I'm right handed & I've long said my left hand is pretty much there for balance. I never thought I did much with it.

Like many of you, I'm a quilter, knitter, crafter & I'm always doing something with my hands. And also like many of you, I've also had hand "problems" for a number of years that I've managed to ignore thinking they'd go away. Then my left thumb and wrist started to bother me - what the heck? I'm right handed, why the left? So I went into my usual routine of ignoring it, then when that didn't work, babying it and then finally digging out the carpel tunnel brace and wearing that. Nope, self doctorinaztion wasn't working so the day before Thanksgiving I took myself off to the hand specialist thinking he would do some magic and FIX IT!

Let me just say that I don't hate going to the doctors, I just don't like it. They're NEVER on time, it's expensive and most times I come out wondering why the heck I bothered since whatever was wrong, is pretty much still wrong . . . So I didn't hold out much hope that I would come out of the hand surgeon miracuously cured, even though I was hoping it would be so.

I did leave with a diagnosis of tendonitis, arthritis, a bone spur and no cartilage left between the bones in the base joint of my thumb. After he mentioned surgery and taking out that bone & replacing it with something I didn't hear because at that point his lips were moving but nothing he was said after removing the bone was registering in my brain that had basically stalled. I left his office with orders to wear an immobilizer and come back in three weeks. He wanted to give me a cortisone shot but the horror of the first one I recieved in my elbow about 8 years ago managed to claw it's way to the front of my brain and I demured.

Yes Virginia, you do use that thumb for MUCH more than you think you do!

Now it's after the holidays and my wrist is bothering me so much I'm wearing the thumb brace AND the carpel tunnel brace on the same hand - it's SO ATTRACTIVE! So Wednesday I take myself back to the hand specialist determined to get to the bottom of why my hand/wrist hurts and how to fix it.

He looks at my thumb - still swollen, bone spur still there, tendonitis, arthritis - yup a mess. Then he looks at my wrist. I explain what's going on. He says it's one of three tendons and he'll press on them until he hits the right one. Third one is a charm & I scrape myself off the ceiling in enough pain to agree to a cortisone shot to try to avoid surgery. EEEEOOOOOOWWWWWW!

This time I find myself in the car, in the same brace, in more pain and I've paid for the experience. Hmmm, did I mention I don't like going to doctors???

A friend has suggested getting out my Glitzer Wand and crystals to decorate the braces for the wedding. I'll take pictures.