I woke at an odd time in the night to fall back asleep…you know, that 45 minutes before it’s really time to get up.  I ended up grabbing my phone and scrolling through.  Oh!  I forgot.  Becky from Quilted Twins was starting her mystery quilt today.

I hadn’t planned on doing her mystery quilt.  I wanted to but at the time it came out, I was working, had a pile of stuff to do and had projects that needed attention.  I just couldn’t start another project….well then COVID-19 hit.  I’ve tackled a few of the projects.  I thought maybe I should do the mystery to keep my mind off things.  I have a wedding a couple other events I typically donate quilts to so this would be a way to get one of those done.

So I laid in bed thinking about what fabric I had.  I don’t keep yardage.  I never have.  90% of my stash is fat quarter and 1/2 yard or less cuts.  I ended up looking up the requirements and it was 2 yards brown, 2 yards red, 1 yard gold.  Hmmm.  I really was pressed to figure something out.  She also made the option of 2 yards dark gray, 2 yards bright blue and 1 yard light gray.

I laid in bed thinking…finally I just got out of bed and started looking.

I keep my fabric sorted by batiks, Civil War-ish, and brights.  I couldn’t figure any way to make the blue and gray combo work with what I had here.  I could come up with the blue in every category except brights…and brights was the only hope I had of finding something gray.  So I started hunting for the red/brown option.  In batiks, red is a hard color….so I searched…this was the best I could do.  I didn’t hate it..I could do more of a pink than red.  I like browns and pinks together.  I didn’t have a ton of contrast with the gold though…Hmmm.

I dug and found this….It wasn’t terrible.  The brown isn’t a Civil War print I don’t think but it was a way to use it.  A blog reader sent to me and I’ve been saving it for binding a charity quilt.  I didn’t think the blog reader would hate me if I used it for personal use and likely, this quilt was going to be gifted anyway.  The red was also gifted.  There are four yards of that.  I was saving it for backing a donation quilt.  Hmmm.  Do I use them?  Do I save them?

I let that go and decided to just think on it a bit.  I had so much more fabric to support the project if I used the 2nd option.  My batiks were running a little more slim after Bonnie Hunter’s mystery quilt.

I was determined to put some time into an existing project before I started the mystery so I finished quilting this… Continue reading →

Wednesday I woke up and decided today I was going to tackle my Frolic quilt top.  I had told you all I was going to do a blog post on all of the quilt tops I had yet to quilt.  I thought my numbers might look a little better if I just tackle one of them first….So, being I already had Frolic loaded in the frame I thought I would quick machine quilt it.

Oh my.

There was no “quick” about it.

I started out not going to far when I realized I hadn’t checked the tension on the back side of the quilt…UGH.  It was all wrong.  So stop.  Get the ripper and rip.  It was really only the corner here…

But, I just hate ripping and it did take about 20 minutes to rip that little area out.
Well then I was plagued with thread breakage.  I would go six inches and the thread would break…rethread.  Go six inches, the thread would break…rethread.  Go 10″ thinking is was all better, the thread would break.  So, I changed thread.  No luck.  I changed the needle, no luck.  I went back to the original spool of thread, no luck the thread broke again.  Seriously, in the short distance I had gone, I have rethreaded the needle about 12 times.  I was so frustrated.

In my next attempt to rethread the needle I noticed the machine was threaded wrong.  Oh my word.  I rethreaded the machine.  Everything worked for about 15″.  Crap.  I thought this was working.  Then I realized that I was out of bobbin thread.

I had taken over an hour to get this far.  How frustrating.  I’m glad that this does not happen most of the time when I use the quilting machine.  The thread breakage and issues were what made me hate my old machine…this machine I really normally never have these problems.  It really was all my fault as I didn’t have it threaded right.  UGH.

I made a pass successfully with not problems and then crap.  Where was Rosie?  I looked, in the bathroom garbage.  She had dumped out personal care products that were in the garbage.  That was fun to clean up…NOT.  I got her settled in her bed and then went on…I finished a bobbin’s worth of thread check on Rosie, she was gone again.  That little sneaker.  I called, ended up going downstairs to look for her and that dog had gotten the garage door open and was in the garage.  Ever since she ate that dog food that was in the garage, she is like a magnet and will scratch at the door to try to get it open…apparently, she got it open because that’s where I found her.

I was frustrated now.  No more of this.  If you can’t behave, in the kennel you go.  I put her in and then went by myself upstairs to finish the quilt.

I got it done…it was so peaceful to work on it knowing she was in the kennel.  I thought I would bind it right away but my machine was covered in partially completed masks.  I sat down and finished seven more…

Then it was lunch time so I went downstairs, let Rosie out and ate lunch.  I planned on taking pictures of my quilt tops that needed to be quilted and do a parade of them for you and then I thought about all the time it would take to drag them out and then fold them back up.  Instead I decided not to waste the time and just put another quilt on the frame.

Rosie was with me and I shut the door to the sewing room.  That would cure her from sneaking away.  She laid in her bed and watched outside.  She was loving it.  I loaded this quilt on the frame…. Continue reading →

Okay…so I told you Rosie had a little bit of trouble but was back on track, right?  Well I spoke to soon.

About a week after Rosie was “better”, Rosie got worse.

Ever since I got her she’s been really good in the kennel even overnight.  From the first day she has gone all the way from bedtime until 6am with not a sound.  Once she wakes, she needs to go outside immediately but I need to be up by 6am anyway so it’s no big deal.

Well Rosie ended up creating such a ruckus in her kennel that I was up and worried about her.  It was 12:15am.  We had gone to bed at 10:30pm.  This was very unusual.  I took her downstairs and outside.  She peed.  We went back upstairs.  She went back in the kennel.

At 1:45am Rosie was at it again. She was acting up so much that again, she woke me up.  Oh my word.  I cannot spend my night like this.  Back downstairs.  Back outside.  She wouldn’t go to the bathroom.  I was a little frustrated.  Seriously, I need to sleep and I could see nothing “wrong” with her.  We went back upstairs.  She went back in the kennel.

She made it until 5:30am…acting up again.  This time I decided to stay up.  We went downstairs.  I took her out, she did her business.  I fed her.  Rosie wouldn’t eat…not a bite.  She drank water like a champ but would not eat a bit.  Looking at her she looked bloated.  UGH.  Now what??  She pooped so that was okay.  She peed….that was okay.   But seriously, a beagle does not pass up food EVER!!

So I messaged my vet.  She told me I needed a urine sample again.  Oh my word.  Seriously…this dog.  Of course it was now Friday.  I needed to act on this so I wouldn’t have to pay the high vet costs for weekend care.  Back to catching a urine sample.  UGH.

So I tried….I got three drops.  UGH.

I was feeling frustrated so went to my phone and updated the kids using Messenger saying “Rosie is sick again.  She won’t eat.”

A short while later I got a message from Karl.  It said, “Check to see if Rosie got in the dog food in the garage.”

I did…this is what I found….

Yep…she got in the dog food.  Here’s the proof…. Continue reading →