Pinwheels On Point by Susan Baker

OK, this was a challenging quilt. It is a great pattern for Layer Cake fabrics, though. It was a Susan Baker class. I didn't much like it at first. I'm not that great a piecer so this one was a challenge. I finally finished the blocks during a Finish It Friday session at our local quilt shop.

I tried to assemble it on the design wall but could not figure it out so I pulled it down. It was destined to be yet another UFO. Martha, at the CraZy 9 Patch put it back up on the design wall so I could take a photo of the layout. And I still messed it up, ripped it out, repieced, ripped...well, you get it.

So I was finally finished with it and it is growing on me now. I like it. So I took it back to the C9P and showed it off. It took Martha 10 seconds to see the error. Can you spot my humility block?

Day 8: Roof Leak

So we left work early (translated = took vacation time) to be home when the roof people and the insurance adjuster were supposed to arrive. Well, the claims guy called 5 minutes before the roof guy to say he/they were delayed. Isn't that always the way it goes. If I was sitting here in my nightgown, they would be ringing my doorbell an hour before their appointment time.

The dehydrator and fan has been pointed up into the attic for five days now. Rolando, the indoor guy used his moisture detector thingy to test the attic drywall and rafters and declared they are dry. The wood floor was not so lucky, more specifically, the wood floor is still holding moisture. The water from the dehydrator has been draining into a tube, up the inside wall and out thru the rafter vent into my gardenia bed. Hmmm. The adjuster wanted to get onto the roof but "hello" it is dark. If you had been here when you were supposed to be.......

The adjuster thinks that maybe he recommend that they sand my 2 year old engineered wood floor vice replacing the 6 x 8 foot section that got wet. What are the chances that they will get the color exactly right. The wood floor makes up 1100 sq ft of the house. So why couldn't the roof leak in one of the bedrooms where there is carpeting? Grrrr.

Christmas Cookie Meme

So what exactly is a meme?

The Blog Meme
A blog meme is a type of Internet meme that requires active participation by the blogger and rarely traces back to an originating source. It's often a series of questions that a blogger answers to share some personal perspective or experience on random topics.

December 18th was Bake Cookies Day - I Totally Missed It

Do you make Christmas or holiday cookies each year? Not exactly, I make macaroons. I also make caramel popcorn balls and fudge

What is your favorite kind of cookie? Pinwheel cookies (store bought) were always my favorite. Then at age 34, I stopped eating things with flour when diagnosed with full blown Celiac's disease. No flour (includes pasta, bread, cake, breaded foods, most processed foods (loaded with fillers) and of course, cookies. Sonow I love and bake macaroons (no flour).

Do you prefer rolled cookies, cut-out cookies, drop cookies or bars? Drop

What is your best cookie recipe?
Macaroons
1 can Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk
1 14 oz package of name-brand coconut (don't cheap out or cookies will flatten when baked)
1 and 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract
1 teasooon of vanilla

Combine ingredients. Preheat oven to 350. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Drop macaroon batter by heaping teaspoons about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. Allow to cool on parchment paper (5 minutes). When bottom of macaroon is hard enough to move with a spatula, move to cooling rack.

Tutu Extravaganza

I think that every little girl is told that she is a princess from the time she is born. And of course, they believe it. Actually some never outgrow that belief.

What little girl has not ventured into Mommy's closet and found such treasures as high heels, colorful scarves and jewelry. As little girls, we are pampered, we play dress up and learn how to pose and preen in front of mirrors. That sweet princess ideal is continued by ballet lessons and tap or cheer classes. When you ask a little girl what she wants to be when she grows up, ballerina is always pretty close to the top of the list. That would be a job where you could play dress-up all the time. Who wouldn't love that job?

On one of the blogs that I visit regularly, Jackie's Quilting, I saw a photo of a little girl in coveralls - she was wearing a tutu. It was adorable. On Jackie's blog was a link to a web-site on How-To for tutus. It is a You Tube video showing the easy steps to make a tutu. My grand-daughter, Madison, is not quite two years old and is all girl. I decided that I just had to try making a tutu for her. The How-To explained it all, 4 yrds of tulle, 3.5 yds of ribbon and scissors. I could just imagine Maddy wearing that tutu on Christmas morning. Then I thought of her cousins, 4 year old Lily and 5 year old Alana and knew that they would love a tutu also. It was so easy, it took me less than an hour to make the first one in 2 shades of pink. The second one was for Alan, the 5 year old cousin, and I bought 2 shades of blue for her tutu. Petite Lily's tutu has all four colors in it. I think that they will love them. Thank you Jackie for the idea and Carrie Grace for the video.

I made my first tutu during a night-time Sit-n-Sew session at the local quilt shop, The Crazy 9 Patch. All the quilters in the class oooh'd and ahhhh'd over the tutus. I went home that night and made the other two tutu's.

I took all three of the tutu's into the quilt shop the next day and we had a little fashion show. OK, now you remember that I said that all girls grow up thinking that they are princesses. And some of them never outgrow that belief.

You give a grown woman a tutu with a satin ribbon and stand back and watch the fun. Most of them automatically went into ballerina pose. It's part of our gender make-up. Plus, all girls love to laugh. The owner, Martha, and worker-bee, Kimmie, along with some of the CraZy 9 Patch staff who came by all got a chance to wear a tutu. Kimmie even had her daughter Katy, home from college, wear a tutu. Jody, Danielle, Dawnell, Debbie, Marilynn and of course, me, all donned tutus and struck ballerina poses for our photos. I laughed until I cried. It was so much fun.

Update on the rain

OK, a crew from American Technologies arrived promptly on Saturday morning to assess our roof leak. The next storm is due on Tuesday so there is no time to waste. The crew used meters to determine the moisture level on the wood floors. It was a much bigger area than I first thought. They did this assessment on the walls and ceiling, too.

As they were doing that, the second crew from Am-Tec arrived to work on the roof. The entire house, except for the garages, is all on one level. The foyer is 2 stories tall, though. They found a hole in the tile roof over what is the foyer. That seems very odd since the foyer is about 30 feet from the ceiling leak. I hope that does not indicate that there are other leaks that we just can't see. We checked the house the day we discovered the leak and found only the ones in the studio. Water leaking in a house is scary especially if you cannot see it. If you don't know it's there, you can't fix it. And if you cannot fix it, it can cause mold down the road. Nobody wants that. Though I am worried about the extent of the damage, we are anxious for them to take care of the entire problem.

So the outdoor crew put up a temporary brace and sand bags with clear plastic covering parts of the foyer roof, and across the roof area of the living room to the back. (Yeah, no blue tarps, thank you very much.)


The indoor crew removed the dry wall from the ceiling in a 7' x 8' section of the studio. The studio is really my living room. We had to move the longarm to the other side of the room. The machine feet were placed on thick wool carpets when we moved the machine from the second master to the living room. We moved it in there several months ago to accomodate my son's family moving in with us. They moved out a few months ago but we have just not moved the machine back to the old studio. We had planned to use that second master while we were getting our master bath remodeled. Hmmm, we may have to revise our plans.

I think we may need to move the machine back to the second master pretty soon as there is no way to quilt in that room in its current state. Plus, when the wood floor is replaced, that will be a mess, sanding, glue smell, yikes. We had the wood floors put in 2 years ago in April. The glue smell was so bad that we opened the windows and left them open for several days and nights. With the current weather, that will not be possible.

So while all this was going on, I sought refuge at the local quilt shop. When I got home, I found a huge plastic room in my living room/studio. If you've ever seen Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo in the movie Outbreak, you will know how I felt. The plastic room is about 8 feet by 9 feet floor to ceiling. The ceiling drywall and insulation have been removed so I'm sure, if you were so inclined, you could see right up to the joists in the attic. There is a machine inside the chamber which hums, a dehumidifier and fan, I think. It runs all the time. The chamber has a zippered door.

We live in the country so we have always known that we share our house with small creatures in the winter. Mice, roof rats, etc come into the attic out of the cold. I do not like it but thus far we have not been able to determine how the little vermin get into the attic. They have never gotten into the house. Of course, they have never had a 7 x 8 foot hole in the living room through which to enter either. The indoor crew assured me that the critters, (if there are any in the attic with all the fan blowing in there) will be contained by the plastic chamber. And yes, I am checking it frequently.

Am-Tec will be back on Tuesday to assess the next step.This is the wrong time of the year for this kind of problem. Well, it is never the right time to have a roof problem. But the holidays are a time for relaxing and enjoying time with your family.

Now that I say that, I remember that several of my quilting buddies in Oregon and New York are suffering through bad storms, fallen trees, loss of electricity and way worse problems than I am. I'll pray for their calamities and I'll try to deal more quietly with mine. Merry Christmas one and all.