I'm sad

I just found out that a member of my quilting guild, someone I know, passed away last night. She had chronic pain. It is believed she accidentally overdosed on her pain medication. She was young.

This is what I am working on now. I am using the Presist I got to try out this month. Not for what I expected to use it for, but it's fun. I should use it more typically too, just to get a feel for it.
I don't know what I am going to pick for May. As you may remember, my '07 New Year's resolution was to try one new material each month. There is a one day workshop with Judi Danes next Saturday, sponsored by the guild. I may take that and count it as May. So far, there were not enough people signed up to hold it. We will see.

I am working on the shirts and hats for the Hip Hop class performance. Joseph's class will be performing at the City of Milpitas Spring Dance Recital, and again for the Family Day.

And finally, straight from Gomilpitas.com:

Cat Haiku

The food in my bowl
Is old, and more to the point
Contains no tuna.

I Have a Dream

After playing a road race game on X-Box and at Alberto's house on Playstation, every other word was Lamborghini. So, during last week's break from school, we went to the Bentley dealership in Los Gatos and LOOKED (but didnt touch) a couple. The pictures make it real and provable. We got a bunch of wallet size ones so he can put them in his wallet(that's why they are called wallet sized).

There were some Ferraris too.

Amazing! Ten cylinders and the same gas mileage we get in our big old Ford truck, but you can't fit near as many bales of hay in the back.

"What good is that?"

"MO-O-O-OM!

Just because your mom doesn't understand doesn't mean she's not trying.......usually.

Maybe when you get old, practicality takes over.

More than just for shoes.




a new BTAE member blog, check it out!
Just click on where is says "Blog" or type www.peachstreet.blogspot.com into your search box thingy.

they had a sale..........

Ebay had a sale on listings on Tuesday, so I listed something. Not because of an increased need to sell something, but because there was a SALE! Those sale genes come from my Grandmother Muz. Mostly they lay dormant.

Like Opus the penguin says: "Buy more and SAVE!"


This is a sweatshirt, size 2XL. It has never been worn, but is made to look old, according to the Primitive Folk Art style, referred to as "Prim" by artists and collectors.

You can veiw the ebay listing and read a more dtailed description by clicking here.

I have the shirts that need to be printed with the HIP HOP logo I designed for Ms. K's hip hop class performance. She really liked the prototype I made. It is screen printed, which is new for me. As you may recall, my new years resolution was to try a new material or process each month. Silk Screen was February, I think.

April's thing was water soluble resist, and I am working on a prim project with that right now. I may list it on ebay next time there is a sale.


To see the ebay offerings of other members of Beneath The Attic Eaves group of primitive folk artists, click on this house picure


I have more sweatshirts made up. You can see them by clicking on this sign.

Delectable Mount Madonna

Wow, it's been an while. A long space between blog entries could mean nothing has been happening to blog about, or so much has been happening that there isn't time. In this case, it's a little of both. A lot has been happening, but not much blog worthy stuff.

My Boy Scout went on a campout over the weekend. In Cub Scouts, the parents always went. One or the other or both. In Boy Scouts, the parents don't have to. Many do, as leaders or advisors, but mostly the older scouts help the younger scouts. Mine volunteered to be Grubmaster for two patrols. This sounds like a pretty big job for a ten year old. They decided on a menu and gave him $120.00 and sent him shopping. An older scout went on the shopping trip, I just drove and waited in the car. Everything went OK. I hear that the food was satisfactory. He should get a lot of things signed off in his book. Tenderfoot rank is next.

They went to Mt. Madonna, near Gilroy. It rained and was not very warm, but they survived. I gave him the 'I'm proud of you' talk while adjusting his neckerchief the morning they left. They always travel in uniform. I missed him and worried about him in the rain and was glad to see him come home. He spent the evening leaning up against me on the sofa, then fall asleep right after he went to bed.

I have ordered a lot of things from Carmen's Country Candles. I haven't seen any of the actual stuff yet, and I won't see most of it since it will be shipped as gifts. I sot SOME things for myself. Carmen was great to work with. I'm going to try and see if I can snag a picture and a link for you.


Link to Carmen's Country Candles wax lamp listing


I went to LAFS on Saturday. It's a Piecemamkers Quilt Guild sew-in on the 3rd Saturday evening of the month. There is a new applique bee, or club, starting so there were a lot of people working on applique. I took my Pfaff 100s and the parts of Delectable Mountains from the mystery quilt workshop I took at Fabrics 'n Fun in February. A Delectable Mountains quilt in two colors is not really my style, but I got some ideas....... If it turns out, it will NOT be your typical Delectable Mountains quilt. If it doesn't turn out, it will be stuffing.

To see quilts that arent stuffing, as well as some things stuffed with quilts, click here.

Community Quilts and Crickets

Hre are some pictures of the Community Quilt I recently finished machine quilting. I used my Juki TL98e.

Community Quilts is a program run by Piecemakers Quilt Guild volunteers. They plan the quilts and get members to help make them. Each quilt is the combined effort of many people. I took this one to quilt. The top had already been pieced, I just quilted it and bound it.

These quilts are made mostly of donated materials. They go out to the community through various organizations. They go to children removed from domestic violence, cancer patients, victims of disaster like housefires.

Milpitas Unified School District has spring break this week. After years of waiting for things to get back to normal, I realize normal is a myth. Every day is the same in it's unpredictability. Yesterday brought a trip to the feedstore for fly spray, crickets, laying pellets, sunflower seeds and a cat toy.

The cat toy was for Whiskers, but she knew right away that An-Jan bags often contain baggies of crickets. Live crickets. She loves bags of live crickets. So I distributed the crickets: six or eight for Liz, One for Whiskers, and the rest for Paula and Chica. Paula and Chica go bannanas when they see the cricket baggy. They peck up the left-over crickets at about two crickets per second per bird. The crickets don't have a chance. I got back inside just in time for Whiskers to throw up her cricket on the floor. I was ready for it, happens every time.

click here to see more quilts

The Post Post

This blog post is about a post. ooooo. cheesy. Couldn't resist.

This is the kitty we recently adopted from the shelter. She plugged into our household routine faster than I thought a cat could. And she seems very happy to be here.


I wondered how someone could invest 3 years into a kitty, including spaying, and then not look for her in the shelter when she turned up missing. Then I got my first clue: She is a furniture shredder.

The enthusiasm and persistance she displayed in shredding our sofa is unrivaled, except maybe by morphne monkeys pressing the button for more.

I went to Wall*Mart and bought this post, some assembly required. Whiskers loves her post. She sleeps at her post. She enthusiastically shreds her post. She thinks her post is the greatest thing since bread that needs slicing.

Our sofa is saved! What's left of it, anyway.

BTAE Spring Ornie Swap

Here are the spring ornaments that I received in the BTAE swap. Aren't they cool? These were made by Sheila of Primkinfolk. For anyone out there who is unfamiliar with Primitive Folk Art, this is what it looks like.

The idea is to make it look like they are old, really old, and made by people who wanted to have nice things but had to make them themselves, no store to go to and buy them.

It's a style that can grow on you.

This is what we call a "swap" where you make something according to a theme and send it to someone else that signed up. The organizer decides which way the exchanges go. There are any ways to decide.

This is the ornament I made to send to Sheila. We were only supposed to send one. Sheila cheated.

This swap was among Beneath the Attic Eaves, and ebay group of primitive folk artists. I'm not primarily primitive, but I like the group. They are nice people. The theme for this swap was Spring Ornaments.

To see everything currently offered by this group, click here.

Mariners Compass

I finished these two recently, and got them on the Doublecatbatik site over the weekend. I wanted to try a mariner's compass, but thought these needed a corner design.

These are All Purpose. Riders know what that means, but for anyone else, this size/shape fits an All Purpose, or Combined Training saddle.

Combined training is a sport in which the riders and horses compete in dressage, cross country jumping, and stadium jumping. It's not a sport for the faint of heart, rider OR horse! The best saddle for dressage is very hard to jump in, and dressage in a jumping saddle is hard indeed. In a combined training saddle, they try to mix the two, making a saddle that is OK for both.


In the end, when riders and horses get more advanced, they need two saddles. And the combined training saddle? A lot of people prefer it for green horses because it is easy to take a more forward position, as well as a more upright position, as the situation warrents. Trail riders, both competitive and casual, often prefer it because they ride on variable footing and slope.

click here to goto my site


R.J. asked for this link.

High on Crack

Here is the bear won with the Golfland arcade tokens found in the Easter egg hunt.

He was 1500 tickets. You use the tokens to play games which pay out tickets based on perfomance. Then you take all the tickets and trade them in for prizes. Fifteen hundred tickets is a lot, even for starting with over 100 tokens. Jospeh is really happy with his bear.

And life goes on. Yesterday morning, I was taking the laundry out of the washer and there was something tangled around the agitator. A pair of Dave's underwear, thrown in too causally, had landed with one leg hole around the agitator. Through the wash cycle it had managed to pull a lot of the rest of the load into it and tie it in a knot. When I got it untangled, one leg hole was stretched out to phenomenal proportions. I showed it to Joseph and said "That's gonna ride up on him all day!" We both laughed so hard! It's what Joseph and Aaron call 'High on crack.'

vIgajbe' pIch--It's not my fault

Well, the trip to Golfland Arcade with the Easter egg hunt tokens yeilded 1500 prize tickets for a giant stuffed bear. I took a picture of the bear, but haven't uploaded from the camera yet.

I also finished my Spring Swap ornie and need to take a picture of that. It came out so primitively grungy, I'm pretty happy with it. I'm not very experienced at grunging primitive things, but I got the queen of grunge as my swap partner and I think I did OK.


I also made this Klingon shirt for Joseph's Museum Project. His 5th/6th grade class is making a museum of languages for the open house. They have been working on it all year. Each student is researching a different language and maiking a museum display. Joseph is doing his on Klingon.

The students voted and chose to do it in costum. Of course, a Klingon costume is a big trekkie item and would be major $$, and not really nessesary, but a trekkie T-shirt should do. So I made this one. It says "vIgajbe' pIch" which is Klingon for "I didn't do it." or "It's not my fault." or "I don't posess blame."


It should be "pIch vIgajbe'" but I messed up. I don't think there are enough Klingon speakers in Milpitas that it will make a difference.

Easter is Here!

Happy Easter!

This morning, a small but growing person got up, he asked "Am I having an Easter egg hunt?"
I reply "I don't know, ask Dad." Yeah, right, a notorius sleeper in, not an option.
"But... am I having an Easeter egg hunt?"
"Dad will know."
"But I already saw an egg....."
So, of course, I answer "So it's a dumb question then."
and we heard the woosh in the plumbing that indicates Dad is awake.
The hunt is on.
There are 46 eggs, 4 have chocolate, one has cat food, one has a horse treat, one has a rock, one has a screw, one has pennies, the rest have 110 arcade tokens, unevely divided.

I am participating in the spring ornie swap with BTAE. This is my ornament in progress. I am behind schedule. I am sending this ornament to Sheila of Primkinfolk.

Beneath The Attic Eaves is an ebay group of primitive folk artists. To see all that they have on ebay, click on this picture. Many also have ebay stores, so you can search that also. in the search, search for BTAE in ebay Stores.

Community Quilt

Here is the community quilt (that I posted a picture of on March 20) getting it's binding. Almost done. The label that Community Quilts attachedto it says "Guy's Churn Dash" but I thought it was a Shoo Fly block. I'm proabably confused.

I started to applique the mariners compass blocks to Karen's saddlepad, but it is way too heavy for the Juki TL. (that's the one in this picture)I'll have to get some practice in on the Juki LZ (pic on March 19) before I try that on it. I have some lightweight poly thread comming any day in the mail. I'm going to make some quilt pieces with muslin that I can wash and then sandwhich together to make saddlepads. Those panels should give me enough practice to work on Karen's pad.

I got some needles for lighter thread and the new bobbin case, so I'm ready to roll. When I have had even more practice, I will try out my new binder and my new hemmer.

In the meantime, I am way behind on my BTAE Spring Ornie Exchange!

Men at Work

Grandparents note, this is over, they did it, nobody got hurt, everyone is OK.Dave decided that we needed new wood on the patio cover, the old wood looked old. So they did it together.

Dad decided the height made him nervous, so he hired an assistant on the cheap. "Will work for donuts."

I remember renting an apartment, Mr. Do-It-Yourself-Home-Repair wanted more home improvement projects than a rental apartment allowed. He LONGED for projects! Then we bought a house and there were so many projects! He soon found out that the trouble is---you have to do the projects that NEED doing before you do the ones you're in the mood to do. That was then.

Now----you do the ones you are in the mood to do. You tell everyone that these are the most important and even if they don't believe you, well, YOU believe you! And the ones that NEED doing? You say they aren't urgent. Because they're not, not to you.

I planted new marigolds in the front yard. They aren't important, unless somebody wants to do a project in the backyard and doesn't want to hear about the lights inside that don't work. After all, summer is comming and who stays awake after 9:00 when the sun goes down?

Rancho Suburbia

I have freesias bloooming in the back yard,






and by the side of my house.

Ant these little volunteers by the raised vegetable beds and by the lillies.


The volunteer bush that began to grow in the front yard has lilacs on it now. Good thing we left it where it wanted to grow.

I got some tasty treat for the snails this week and put it out in the front. They have had two days to enjoy thier last meal. Today I'm going to get more merigolds and try again!

Paula and Chica do a fair job on snails in back, but I don't let them in the front, too dangerous for chickens!

I want to plant sunflowers with my merigolds today. I had them there last year and really liked them.

Yesterday I planted two saucers of cat grass for Whiskers and Mary Shelley. It's just wheat, but cats like the grass. I just get bulk wheat at the feed store, less expensive than the prepackaged kind that has a picture of a kitty on the label. That should be up by Friday, and back up again on Saturday! (If you know what I mean)