paranoid much?

have you ever felt that someone or something is watching you?

the Helix Nebula captured by the Hubble telescope

Make sure your worst enemy is not living between your own two ears.

Unknown

raising rays

after spending waaaay too long drawing out the diamonds for paper-pieced rays

i was feeling pretty good about my plan ... till i realized that they were gonna be backwards once they were paper-pieced... 

sigh...

 i didn't want to redraw the angles for the diamonds to go the opposite direction 

cuz drawing accurate angles isn't my idea of fun and this Quilting Thing is supposed to be about fun, innit?!?

  so i wasted even more time than redrawing would have taken figured out how to use the mirror image function on the printer

 and took my precious paper copy of diamonds facing the right way which was actually the left way to kinkos...

here's the first ray...

war

 the second one...

peace

and here they are together...

peace and war 

the colors are a lot more vibrant In Real Life  

and the tipis are flannel that looks and feels like chamois...

now i've just gotta raise some more rays

 till i have a star...

We've begun to raise daughters more like sons ... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.

Gloria Steinhem

big yellow taxi

when i first moved to this house it didn't have a microwave ... not a big deal ... i didn't use the microwave for cooking ... i just used it to heat up stuff like coffee and frozen dinners and leftovers ... i could live without a microwave ... piece of cake ...... i lasted six days ... i found myself wandering around the kitchen with a cold cup of coffee in my hand and trying to remember what i used to do with cold coffee back when rocks were soft and mist was in the air ... the next day i went to the scratch and dent section of Sears and bought myself a dented microwave whose door didn't hang quite right and had it installed ... it's still working knock on wood ... fast forward ... last week the computer started making a terrible racket ... we took it apart, vacuumed out the insides, and put it back together ... it was still making scary noises that were now accompanied by a cloud of dust floating in the air ... so we unplugged everything from the tower and lived without a computer ... not a big deal ... i don't use the computer for business ... i just use it to blog and read email and surf the Net ... piece of cake ...... i lasted six hours ... i found myself unable to look up on the Internet why the service engine light might suddenly light up on Auntia's car ... and unable to pay bills ... or look at my woe-begotten checking account ... i wandered around trying to remember what i used to do when lights lit up on the car and bills needed to be paid back when rocks were soft and mist was in the air...

don't it always seem to go
that you don't know what you got till it's gone
sing it, Joni!

so we bought a new tower and a printer cuz it was in the toilet, too and Auntia hooked it all up ... and we're back on line ... i'm not sure that i like Windows 7 cuz it wasn't my idea and i can't believe how much basic software costs just so we can write a word document and the scanner scares the beejeebies outta me ... but i know that with trained monkey instructions and a pat on the head and two bananas a day i will learn how to function again ... i've already figured out surfing fabric shops which are off limits on accounta we have to pare down to the bare essentials till we've paid for this thing and i think that i can load a picture ... let's see ...growl ... stomp
yep - there it is ... i dunno why it's so small ... huh ... guess i'll hafta try again...
growl ... stomp
anywho ... i finished piecing the spirit guides and i really, really like them ... i bought the book and pattern years and years ago when they were first printed ... i read the directions and bought the fabric and reread the directions and put it all away ... then i made the quilt flimsy and brought out the book and the pattern and the fabric again ... i read and reread and subtracted and multiplied and added and reread some more - and put it all away ... when i was cleaning the magick shoppe i found all of the stuff again ... i read the directions and figured out the formula for half-sizing, made my calculations and started cutting ... and this time it made sense ... woo hoo!!! these are gonna be pillow shams for European-sized pillows to go with the quilt ... and now i'm gonna see if i still remember how to post a post...

hit the ball ... drag charlie

it's an old (very old) joke about four golfing buddies ... during the course of their 18 holes of golf, charlie has a heart attack and dies ... a real tragedy for the remaining three golfers - who spend the rest of the game hitting the ball and dragging charlie ... hey - i didn't say it was an old joke in good taste ...
...and that is how i feel about my three - yes, three - weed whackers ...... i am not good with gas powered tools - i almost always go for electric ... my george foreman grill is electric and my lawn mower is electric and my stove is electric ... and it only stands to reason that my weed whacker would be electric ... i have one that has two lines threaded through some kind of mysterious eyelets that i cannot figure out, and one that is a bump to release ... the two-timer never made it past the first run did i mention that i cannot figure out how to thread the new line through? and the bump to release lost its spring not that bumping ever worked to release the line anyway ... i'm just saying and i have to unscrew the dial doohickey, feed through some more line, re screw the dial doohickey and then whack for about four feet ... then unscrew the dial doohickey, feed through some more line, re screw the dial doohickey and whack for about four feet ... you get the idea - hit the ball ... drag charlie...

...so this spring i got the brilliant idea of buying a new weed whacker and trimming my lawn without the usual hassle......Auntia put it together for me ... she even read the directions...
...and this is what happened the second time i used it ... it wouldn't bump and release (big surprise) so i put in a brand new reel ... i whacked a total of fifteen feet along the front wall and all of the line was gone ... i found the empty reel over by the spruce tree ... and bits and pieces of blue line all over the front yard ... i was lucky - it could have put my eye out!!! so i put the whole mess back in the garage and decided that i would never, never, never trim the lawn again...that nasty mess in the upper right hand corner is strawberry bird poop - it is disgusting
...till today ...... i took a good look at the shaggy mess of grass and weeds growing up the wall and decided that i would have to return to weed whacker hell ...... the front and the back are cut and trimmed ... it took me ten times longer than it should have but it is done ...... till next week ...... hit the ball ... drag charlie

yikes!

last night i used up hours and hours trying to make a button for my blog ... i understand the URL addresses part, but my image was ... well ... it was ... HUGE ... and it had to be put down for its own good ... then i used up some more hours trying to move pictures off the camera ... they are probably forever lost in the computer's innards ... and now my blog list is MIA ... not to mention the poor quality of pictures that i actually do manage to move over here ... sheesh.

anywho, while reading blogs this morning (yes ... yes ... i do have other things to do, but the other things involve toilet bowl brushes and vacuum cleaners and dust cloths and the washing machine ... shudder) i was directed to a give-away (thanks, mamasparks) here for 30 fat quarters - and she has a bunch of other giveaways listed, too ... so check it out if giveaways are your kinda thing...

a techno-phobe tries to blog with pictures

when i tried to post a picture the other day, i was unable to find any of the picture files on the computer ... now that my youngest daughter has given me trained monkey instructions, i am ready to try again.

ah - there they are ... now, a little story to go along with them.

last year, after reading about the wedding signature quilt here, i offered to make one Mrs. Moth and, with some hesitation, she and her soon-to-be husband accepted. this is the fabric that they chose. as you can see by the time stamp on the picture, it was already march 9 and the wedding was planned for april 12 ...... i do like a challenge. she loves dragonflies, so i modified the rosebud block and came up with a plan for a dragonfly block. my sample block was shades of lavender, with a white on white print for the wings - plenty of room for signatures. i thought that the happy couple's favorite color was blue and i pictured lovely little dragonflies, with wedding wishes from all of the guests, flying against a sky blue background. i took the bride and groom to Tomorrows Heirlooms (one of the local quilt shops that has an abundant supply of batiks) and they chose ... omigawd ... brown. yes, you read that correctly ... brown! i tried to explain that the background was going to be most of the quilt ... i showed them bolt after bolt of pretty batiks in blues ... lavenders ... i even tried to convince them that grey would be a lovely choice ... but, no, they knew what they wanted - and what they wanted was that brown that you see. then we went to the faerie frosts ... and they selected blue, copper, and dark purple, with ivory for the wings. oh-kay. i had the fabric torn (i love the fact that Tomorrows Heirlooms tears the fabric - i always have enough because i am not paying for off-grain cuts), and bought a roll of one and one-half inch (finished) half-square triangle paper and two big spools of medium grey thread. i took my purple bag of goodies home, sighing all the way and wondering what i was going to do to make a murky brown quilt seem anything but depressing. i pre-washed the fabrics and waited for them to air dry, hoping against hope to receive a phone call telling me that they'd made a terrible mistake and not to start cutting ... alas, said phone call was not forthcoming. and so, rotary cutter in hand, i started slicing and dicing and came up with the first block. groan. the bride's little sister took a picture with her cellphone (again, i am a techno-phobe and have no idea how to perform such electronic miracles) and sent it to the netherworld. and that was followed by a text received, requesting more. ninety-nine more! did i say that i like a challenge?

let me just say this about that

my html was chosen while under a lot of stress to give Blogger what it was asking for - an unused address ... did i do a search on "what is starbucking"? ... well, no ... why would i need to do that?!? doesn't everyone know who Starbuck (the Colonial Warrior, not the coffee bar) is? and that he was stranded on the generational prison planet and was asked what star buckin' is?

i guess i did have something to say, after all.

first post ... and nothing to say.