The back for the Holiday Row Robin quilt is all finished up. I thought I was shorter on fabric than I really was so I'm going to redo the blue border fabrics at the top and the bottom to better match, as I'm 100% sure I can't stand to watch that teal "jump" every year during the holidays.

I haven't bought clothes in a long time, just a new top here or there. Since my accident in 2001 it's difficult for me to try things on, as you constantly have to sit, stand, and wiggle around. I dug out my cloth tape i.e. the sewing tape measure that bends and measured, letting measurements do the talking. Then I went to the website where I wanted to order my clothes, and ordered the size that the inches told me to. Now I hate those numbers. They seem so awful, not to mention women's sizes have three different departments. Who dreamed that one up? Shoot I'd rather be like the men's department and only have one place in the store I need to check for my size, but that could just be my disability complaining.

So anyway, with a deep breath I went clothes shopping online. I was so excited by have a few new things the silly size number didn't matter anyway. The days go by and I wait and wait, insult is added to my waiting because of the 4th, but no matter, I can't wait.

The clothes arrived yesterday. Yes siree, they did. All of them are way to big. Huge is perhaps an understatement for most of them. One pair of pants comes close, but DH would have to add a "hole" to the belt so I can cinch it down enough, to keep the pants where they belong. I was a mess over it. What a disaster. I feel so bad for anyone else that might have thought they could trust their tape measure.

So Rob arrives home shortly after I tried on everything in the box. After a few minutes he tells me, "at least you know those clothes are all to big". Right. Is that truly supposed to help me? Awwgee, sure I'm glad their not to tiny, but I was so looking forward to having them fit.

The Special little Lady Cardinal is here this morning. I bet she's glad she doesn't have to stand and try on clothes.

More on the Back

Yesterday I spent a wonderful day with my husband. We didn't do anything, but it was wonderful all the same. He's been working his regular job and is doing some intensive contract work, so I haven't been seeing much of him lately. After he departed to work in the pm, I got out my quilt supplies and work more on the Row Robin Quilt back. As you can see in the photo it's coming right along. Two more borders, one in muslin to make it the rectangle I need and one in a flannel border fabric to frame it all in and bring it up to size.

Today is a big day for me. Just this morning I packed up the last of the seed from the capsules my Phaius Tankervilliae Orchid produced (with my help) and this after noon I'll be shipping it off to the Conservatory. I be sharing the germination status of that with you as I know, but if you'd like to keep track you can watch here. While this process didn't go as planned (can we say tornado) I have enjoyed working with Meyer's Conservatory and look forward to helping again in the future.

Row Robin wRap Up

My row has been returned to me, in the form of a completed top. It's quite interesting for me to see what "Christmas Hope" means to all the ladies in my group. When I made this row DH had been unemployed for six months, it was taking everything I had to hold everything together to hope for the future. Things changed shortly after the creation of the first row and I very nearly remade it, but in the end I decided the row represented who I was at that moment in time and therefore was well worth being my row for the Row Robin. This is a quilt I will enjoy seeing every holiday. I've started working on the back for this one, it's destined to be a huge star, as you can see I currently only have the center. Don't judge it harshly as I've been using the little Elna to keep the pressure off the one needing to be repaired. All of the center fabrics are from what I used in the original row. As for the rest of the back, it's scrap busting time. Every fabric I'll use is from my stash, I have already planned out the entire quilt and double checked that I have enough of the five other fabrics I'll be using. The first border around is a delight of Noah's ark complete with a sleeping kitty and a dog. As always you can click on the pictures to see them bigger.

Check up and Check in

Today was annual checkup time for Sunny and Tiny. I've been a bit worried about them so it was nice to hear how great they are. Sometimes I think my cats must be charmers to become divining rods for compliments. Or maybe that's part of the vets job? I don't know they see so many animals. I did in fact ask my sister if she knew of any "ugly" cats and she is certain that there are such things. I've never met one myself.

For a while now Sunny has had his own trading card over at Blue Buffalo. The makers of our cat food. Feel free to head over there and check him out.

Earlier this evening my daughter told me "Sunny went poop!" Followed quickly by "we need to bag it up and take it to the vet!" The things children say sometimes. It cracks me up.

Today was in fact a hard day for Jessica. She missed Kitty very deeply today, and I even though I try my best to love and support her, I feel like sometimes it isn't enough.

Tonight I am watching out the window at my "special needs" Cardinal. Perhaps some of you remember her. The cardinal with only one leg that visits my bird feeder quite frequently. Tonight I can't help but worry a little about her. She is curled up in the bottom "bowl" of the feeder. She's been sitting there for about 10 minutes, and now it's past 8pm. I hope all is well with her as watching her visit everyday brings joy to my days. Since those first visits we've learned a bit more about her. She does have two legs, but one has no "toes" at all and she seems to like to keep it out behind her to keep it from being banged around. Ahhh hark, the Cardinal has flown. It's so nice to see her depart this evening. I'll be looking forward to seeing her again tomorrow. Perhaps she too just needed a quiet moment. Feel free to read more about her and see a few photos here.

I've done things!

I've come up with two quilt layouts one for the Wildcat blocks from the exchange, and one for the sampler quilt I'll be donating to charity this year. The sampler quilt requires quite a bit more fabric than I had hoped so no stash busting there.

I also went through all my fabrics. I read somewhere that you should go through them time to time, and I found I had a whole lot more apparel fabric than quilting fabrics. How did that happen you ask? Well my neighbor cleared out her stash and everything she didn't think she would use she gave to me. That lead me in the creation of a beautiful blue blouse. It's funny to me because when I first brought the fabric home and was washing it Jessica told me it was "carpet". Now she says "Mommy it's so beautiful". I'm just glad she doesn't think it looks like carpet anymore.