New clothes

I decided to spiff up the wardrobe recently, inspired partly by my upcoming attendance at my brother-in-law's wedding. So joining all the quilting fabrics in the closet are some crepes and such for skirts (I hate straight skirts and like them a little long, so I end up making all of them by a simple six gore pattern) and new pants and two spring jackets in nice spring-y colors from that emporium of style, JCPenney. I'm not being snarky, I really do buy clothes there, because I never liked spending a ton of money on clothes and all I really needed were some solid color short sleeve shells to wear under jackets and some classic pleated pants.

Well, I found the pants, in a nice dressy lightweight fabric that had a little body to hang well, were washable (always a plus) and had small inserts of elastic in the sides of the waistband. Perfect. Until I tried them on. The hips fit but the waist is a good 3 inches too large, without even stretching the elastic. When did clothing manufacturers forget women have waists?

You would have to be shaped like a cylinder to fit into these pants. Honestly, I am on the plus size of things, and my hourglass figure has gained some time, so to speak, but my waist is still 10 inches smaller than my hips, and evidently that's rare nowadays. I found the same thing with skirts in the stores and my beloved LLBean khakis, which have been recut and don't fit like they used to. So, this morning I'm altering the pants.

I would rather be stood out in the rain naked than alter clothes. I would rather make the things completely from scratch. I would rather, gasp, make another Double Wedding Ring quilt than do this. It's a PAIN. Picking out that serger stitching will drive you crazy. And when all of it is disassembled, you have to deal with the threads and the fraying and trying to fit the darned things to your body. Makes a person wish for all elastic waistbands.

But I can't quit until these three pants are altered and three skirts are made. Then I can organize my closet and breathe a sigh of relief. I hadn't bought anything new since I retired 18 months ago, and just ran around in khakis, tees and fleece jackets. I looked kinda ratty, at least to myself. I was never a clotheshorse, but don't subscribe to Thoreau's quote "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes" either. Now, whatever activities come my way, I can meet them with sartorial splendor!

Almost finished with the Double Wedding Ring quilt

I'm down to piecing the back of the DWR. No picture - it doesn't look much different than the last time you saw it, just bigger - maybe when it's all quilted. The backing will have an 11" wide vertical stripe inset about 1/3 of the way from the edge made up of 3" strips of all sorts of colors which coordinate with the large print on the front. They will be cut from all the fat quarters I collected to make star blocks in the original design. In this strip will be a pink "center" section from the DWR pattern, encircled with rose half-melon pieces. The pink center will be where the label is appliqued when it's done. I don't know exactly what the label will look like - I may ask my longarmer to use her embroidery machine to make a rectangle of pink roses on cream fabric so I can add the words inside. I could hand embroider something, but it would take longer than the top did to piece.

Sometimes I think that if I had made the original design that was meant for this fabric the quilt would have been prettier. I like the solid arc wedding ring design, but it is just too plain for my tastes. I hope the recipients like it.

I have also decided that making a glorified nine patch will be a piece of cake compared to this one. The nine patch won't have these darned corner blocks, which had to be inset, and about drove me crazy. The curves are a piece of cake compared to that.

Oh, yes - I heard from the stray girl kitty's new owners about what they chose for her permanent name. Are you ready? Gumbo! The family moved here from the Gulf coast so the woman said it seemed appropriate.

Don't ask me - I'm a Kentucky girl.

My mom remarked that it seemed more like a name for a boy kitty. I thought it was better as a name for a food. I generally don't name animals strange things. Molly, Sasha, Sylvester, Charlie, Zack, Spike (ok, he was an old tough tom - nothing else would do). I will cop to naming a cat Uncle, but that was kind of a family joke. But I have never named a cat for a soup.

Oh wow!

My quilt came back from Deb today, and let me say - her work is exquisite. She has already posted some pictures and I will make more tomorrow, but photos can't convey how beautiful her work is. The exacting parallel quilting and diamond checks, the motif quilted onto each teacup that is derived from the fabric pattern, the little swirls above the cups signifying the steam rising from the tea, the beautiful swirls in the sashing...I'm blown away!

Deb, you're a genius!

Authors you just want to choke

A comment I left on Joan's blog got me to thinking about trying to read a biography of a person whose life choices just exasperate you. I had that experience recently when I read "Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously". Check out my comment on Joan's blog for my review. The gist is that this woman seemed so immature, so self-involved and so rudderless that it was difficult to stay with her through the book. You wanted to grasp her by the shoulders and shake her - "Just grow up, for pity's sake!" Her friends seemed just as clueless and weak-spined, and the passivity of her husband was creepy. If this is typical of 30 year olds nowadays (does that sound old enough for you!) I am worried.

I have run into the overly-intrusive-author's-personality syndrome in several non-fiction books read in the past months. One was "Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World". If the book was about the cat, Ms. Author, why did so much of it revolve around you? Ditto for "Marley and Me" and "A Good Dog". (Wait - there's a trend here. Are people who write about their pets generally insufferable? Remind me not to talk about my cat so much!)

The only book I read recently where this didn't bother me was Anne Lamott's latest, "Grace (Eventually)". Anne Lamott IS all about Anne Lamott, but if you know her you know what you're getting, and conveyed by her wonderfully conversational writing style are the unfliching insights of a woman who has often fallen but keeps limping toward God, a damaged personality that is gamely trying to maintain her balance, sobriety and faith. Her book about her son's first year, "Operating Instructions" is also good, as is "Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith". They may not be a traditionally religious person's cup of tea, but I saw the honesty and effort inside the fluff of self-absorption.

What's wrong with me?

I have a whole uncommitted day ahead of me - no reason to leave the house (and it's colder than whiz, don't want to anyway), nothing looming on the schedule. I planned to sew the entire day and finish piecing the double wedding ring quilt. So what am I doing?

Not sewing. Cleaned the kitchen, straightened the house, made lunch, caught up on the laundry, did my taxes, organized my spice cabinet, for heaven's sake.

Yeah, I'm avoiding, big time.

Why? Who knows. I set up the sewing machine, sewed two arcs on a melon piece, and stopped. I'm just not feeling it.

I know I better start feeling it, and soon, because I only have one row to go and I need to reserve a place in the longarmer's queue. Maybe I want to sew on something else, maybe I'm just burned out on the curves, maybe I just burned out about sewing in general (I get that way sometimes) but whatever the case, I need to light a fire under myself and get at it.

Playtime's over, kid, back to work.

P.S. I got another email from Stray Girl's adoptive family saying how thrilled they were with her. She's sleeping in their bed, for heaven's sake! Now that's a kitty that's got it good.

Closure

Stray Girl's adopted family sent me a picture of the children with the kitty and everyone is very happy. What a great ending!

Now that the drama is over I can get back to sewing on the last row of the Double Wedding Ring quilt.

Stray kitty has found a home

The stars were perfectly aligned for me this time. When I went to pick up Stray Girl after she was spayed on Monday, the receptionist handed me a note with a telephone number. "If you still want to find a new home for her, this lady might be interested."

Of course I was interested. While I waited for them to release the kitty, the vet stuck his head into the examining room and filled me in on the details. A family had adopted a 4 month old kitten from the local shelter. After three weeks it suddenly sickened, and died with acute anemia. No one knew what had caused it. The family, especially the 6 year old daughter, was heartbroken. The vet said that they had fought hard to cure the cat and only given up and had it euthanized when it was apparent it was in extreme distress and nothing was going to help, because they didn't want it suffer any more. He didn't have any idea what caused this sudden acute anemia. He knew they still wanted a cat, so he told the lady that I had a cat I was looking to place, and she was interested, especially when she found out it was a calico. She left her name and number for me.

In the mean time I brought the kitty home and made it comfortable in the small bathroom, with her bed, her litter box and her favorite catnip mouse. She was eating well and moving like she was sore but not in tremendous pain. We had a lot of quality time while I sat on the bathroom floor (ouch.).

I called the prospective family last night and emailed a few pictures. She responded immediately that she wanted to see the cat. I told her she was welcome to visit any time today. Around 11 this morning she came by and fell in love with Stray Girl, who is an exceptionally good people kitty, and did all the appropriate rubbing, purring and lap sitting, even while recovering from her surgery and not feeling tip-top.

The lady wanted to know if it was too soon to take Stray Girl home. I gave her advice about isolating the cat in a small room such as a bathroom for a few days to allow her to recover, and making sure the children weren't too rough with her. With those conditions,I felt it was all right for the cat to go to its new home immediately. So Stray Girl was loaded up in a carrier and left my care about noon.

I feel really good about this adoption, both because the little girl will be thrilled to have a new kitty and because of the description of the family the vet gave me. I'm sure they will be good owners, and Stray Girl will have a great life. She's going to email me photos of the children with the cat.

I sent her favorite catnip mouse with her. So, be well and happy in your new home, little stray kitty, I'm glad our paths crossed, and glad to help.