Handyman in the studio - be very afraid....

My husband is a dear and he helps me with so many things. (Yeah, here comes the "but") But when his heart is not in a project, he can procrastinate longer than anybody I know.
I've had some on-going problems with my feet caused by standing up to quilt (without taking sufficient breaks). I will not bore you with the icky details, let's just say that I have already lost 2 toes on the right foot and would like to keep the remaining eight toes. And before you ask, no I am not diabetic.

So 2 months ago, the foot problems returned and I am still going to weekly wound care treatments. I think they are better ("they" are the 2 big toes) but we are waiting for an MRI to bear that out. So the doctor tells me that I can either sit to quilt or continue to lose appendages. He is not much on bedside manner.

So my husband and I discussed several ideas. We could put in a wood floor but that is a bit pricey. We decided to put in 3/4 finished plywood 4 ft by 12 ft to run the length of my machine. Then we will remove the quilt top's bottom roller that I don't use anyway; that way I can sit on my quilter chair and roll from one end to the other. Before we put in the plywood, we laid down some 6mm plastic to protect the carpet underneath the wood. He is in there installing the wood now with the accompanying choice swear words popping up here and there.

I forgot to mention the keystone cops episode we had when trying to get our lumber home from the store. We ended up calling out neighbor to come bail us out. We bought the plywood (3 ft x 8 ft) and put it on the roof of my SUV. Hubby decided to go with the twine there at the lumber station...free... instead of buying rope or bungee cords. We left the lumberyard headed for home. After 3 stops in a half mile to tighten the twine cords where the plywood was sliding off the car, I called my neighbor and asked him to bring his truck. This has been a keystone cops episode since the beginning.

Well, I hear him vacuuming up the sawdust so it must be done. I'm sure I'll love it. No worries, I have great insurance.

A New Citizen

A friend from church was sworn in as a U.S. Citizen on Wednesday. Because of dual-citizenship laws in Sweden, she had waited a long time. Our local party planners (Jeannette, Linda T and Judy H)decided that Elisabeth needed a party so that we could all celebrate with her.
We all brought a dish of food to share. As soon as I stepped in the party house, all I could see was red white and blue. All of us wore red, white and blue and were handed mardi-gras-style RWB beads. There were RWB balloons with streamers, banners with "In God We Trust" and RWB "God Bless America". There were stick on red and blue stars in the foyer so us girls could add a star or two to our faces.
The celebration started with all of us facing the flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (including the "Under God" part). Then we sang "God Bless America" and then "The Star Spangeled Banner". Elisabeth gave a wonderful speech (not a dry eye in the house) and the party was started for real. Congrats, Elisabeth.
Here are some of the photos. You can make up your own captions.

The new citizen has a big smile on her face.








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Friendship Stars #2

I have a client named Mary that like Friendship Stars. She made a Friendship Star quilt a couple months ago but the fabrics blended too much and she like the way the star points showed. I used lots of line work on that one.
So she carefully chose the fabric for Friendship Star #2 and told me that she wants to see the stars point and no line work. Hmmm, OK. Mary has always know what she wants in her quilts.
So I gave her three options with three different prices. She chose the wispy feathers with CC and stipple. I used a feather spine with pearls from Compuquilter Designs The rest is freehand.



I also learned a new border treatment from Laura Farnham that I wanted to try on this wwide border. I think it would have looked better on a solid border but I had to try it. It involved standing a triangle on its long edge facing each other and then adding piano keys to fill what's left of the triangle. She was happy with how it turned out.