Things To Do

Roses to plant. Halloween. Gardening. Bills to pay. Airborne to take. I have had a week here that is mostly good stuff with a bit of ICK.

My work days are a bit slow and I have been given the "opportunity" to go home early two days in a row. Now, the first time this happened I was so bored out of mind, I said "YES!" to going home early. Perhaps that wasn't the smartest thing to do? Since it was still daylight when I got home, I went out into the garden and pulled up the bean plants and harvested my shell beans, pulled up my squash vines and picked raspberries (which the dog ate when I was doing the beans). AFTER being on hold with the IRS for three renditions of the "Sugar Plum Fairies". And I still owe a "boatload" of money to them because of a mistake I made. Knew I made. Was waiting. The IRS guy was very helpful.

Yesterday I got to drain the water plant pools at work (siphon out all the water the smart Deb way) and dispose of the annual lettuce and hyacinth water plants. ICK. I took a 5 gallon bucket of the slimey things home for my compost. The remainder went into the bucket loader and then into the dumpster. I also helped toss rotten pumpkins into the bucket loader, unloaded new pumpkins and mums and finally helped unload bundles of corn stalks off a farm truck. Good times.

Today I was scheduled for lunch with my walking buddy (even if we have had no time to walk these days) but she called early this morning to report she had "caught" her baby grandson's cold. Just talking to her and listening to the runny nose and coughing led to sympathy cold symptoms --- so I started my day with the Airborne shooter, just in case.

I have a second load of laundry going already this morning and I really should make a batch of peach preserves today. Must find jars and boil them. I roasted Delicata squash and beets yesterday while heating up G's dinner, then baked some pita chips (if the oven is on, use it) for my lunches. I'll have the squash with some fried onion, raisins and steamed kale.

I returned to Big Lots to find that 3 of the 12 inch square stretched canvas had been sold, so I came away with only the last two. I read about mounting small pieces on stretched canvas on Jeanne Williamson's blog. She has cut up unsold construction fence quilts and reassembled them into interesting squares and mounted them on the stretched canvas. I am thrilled to learn that even a world famous quilter has trouble with the "potholder" designation for any small quilted pieces and found her solution a good one.

Another solution I have seen in Natasha Kempers-Cullen's studio is to make a pocket on the back of small pieces and slide a thin piece of wood into the pocket and then stitch the bottom edge closed. These hang on the wall like fabric plaques.

I once stretched an unbound 36 by 48 quilt over stretchers and stapled the edges to the back. It worked quite well and was easy to hang. The problem emerged when I wanted to enter the piece in a show. Had to remove it from the stretchers (no effect on the work) and finally trim and bind it.

Finding ways to make our fabric work look like the art it is, and not domestic linens, is a real problem. Those among us who are working with whole cloth which is dyed, painted or printed are having an easier time, IF, the work is large. Small work will always be a problem unless we all decide to frame it. Under glass. Hard to pull a pan of cookies out of the oven with a framed "potholder".

What's Good Today (or not): Sunshine, day off, G is home. Good stuff on tv tonight. That last debate was so bad. Same speeches and sound bites over and over again "my friends". The world is changing every second and people are scared. Both candidates need to get a clue here and step up to the plate. Now. Not in January. G and I will be working until the day we die. No sweet retirement for us, "my friend". But heating oil and gas are going down. $3.27 for gasoline here in Maine today. And a station locally went to $2.99 already so it's possible they are overcharging. OH! REALLY?