Burma Shave

I put these signs up at the stable where I board Janow. They were inspired mostly by the sad SLOW DOWN sign that Sandro put up.


These went up early in the morning. Nobody knew who did it. It was a good topic for discusion. I told anyone who asked me that it was me, just few people asked!







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Yesterday our internet connection was down

Yesterday was the first day of school. Middle school. He did fine. Nobody had their schedule because the school did not have them ready in time. Organization is going to be the biggest challenge for him, mostly because the school isn't. After the first day, many of the teachers appear to be organized. I guess they have to be.


That left me with time to schmooze with Janow and Silver. The whole summer has been such a rush for Janow, getting only as much as he needs. He was pretty sick most of the summer anyway, and not himself.

Silver remains Silver. With the Boy Scout Camp in Half Moon Bay over the weekend, she spent some major time being ignored. I am working on that today. I want to go to Savers and look through the sewing patterns to see if I can find a pattern for a baby sling like the one that the rabbit had in the movie Mozart and the Whale. It was a very good movie, not just because of the rabbit.

I watched the movie Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. That was uch better than I expected. Way better. I still want to see Donnie Darko one more time!

as of now

Here is what is in progress now. I've also started my holiday shopping.
Silver had her picture done yesterday.
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.for all your unique holiday shopping, ETSY

Tree House

Dave and Joseph have been building a tree house. They looked on the web and found out how to do it without damaging the tree.

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Lex Luthor

I made these for the silent auction in next months Boy Scout Trrop 92 Court of Honor silent auction. They are about 15 inches square.


And here is a WIP, Work In Progress. They are all lookin a bit like Lex Luthor right now.

I opened the wahser/dryer closet and one mystified and relived Whiskers came out from behind the washer. She was playing hide and the game ended, but she couldn't come out.

Cleaned up some paint and discharge, made two new stamps and laid out three saddlepads and started the next step on the mithraic tank.

In the Mood

We ran out of cat food so I went to An Jan for more. Since I was going home right after, I could get crickets for Paula the chicken without having them die in the car. Whiskers loves crickets and wanted one very much. I have learned through experience that she will simply eat it and then throw it up. If I am in the mood to clean it up, I give her one. Yesterday I was not in the mood.


This is what's on the table today. It looks better int he photo than in real life. Thats a good thing. I think.

Last night I heard geese. I looked up and saw the V going south. Winter is coming.










BURMA SHAVE

Cars

Here we are at the National Automobile Museum in Reno



Here is a very bad picture of a bug, but I couldn't believe the size. I didn't know a praying mantis could be so big! The desert is a good place to be if you are an insect.

This is also a very bad picture of me. Joseph is photogenic as always. You will have to ask Grandaddy if he likes the picture of him. I think it's fine.





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The Last Monday

The last Monday. Don't you wish! The last Monday before school starts. Suddenly the wishing stops...for some.


Poor Dave! He woke up with a sore throat this morning. He accidentally swallowed a mouthfull of Listerine last night.

Gas is 4.09/gal today, Down 20 cents from last week.

Somehow, I have decided to buy a new art collector card. These cards are the size of baseball cards, but art instead. Far more interesting than baseball!! Artist Brent ward is my choice.

Skip on over to her web site
or her Etsy store and help me decide which one.

more pyramid lake

Here are more pictures from Pyramid Lake. I know my pictures aren't the best, but it was such a beautiful place I can't get over it. Who'd want to?
You can see the scale of the tufa formations in my picture with my hand. It is made by precipitation from calcium-bearing spring water in an alkaline lake rich in carbonates. Totally amazing.
We saw places where campers have vandalized the formations just to see if they could knock them over. Ben told us that the Paiute Tribe no longer allows camping there for that reason.

But...now that we are home, the routine is back. Or my frustration at the lack of routine anyway.

Dave and Joseph were browsing Craig's list for lawn tractors. They want to get one to drag stuff. Fine by me. I'm not interested, but I don't have to be. If they want a lawn tractor to drag stuff with.........Dave said to me, as they browsed, "There's free horse manure on here! They put a picture of their horse!" I replied:"We don't need it, we already have the expensive kind."

"You're not kidding!"
Joseph and I went to the library yesterday. He got another Calvin and Hobbs book, and a Get Fuzzy. I picked up Queen City Jazz by Kathleen Goonan that I started but couldn't renew because someone else had requested it. It was probably the person who was reading it when I requested it the first time. Two people fighting over the only copy in the Santa Clara Coutny Library System, it must be good. Now I can finish it.

I also got a book called Bride of the Fat White vampire: The Wedding is Going to be Huge, by Andrew Fox. The title made me laugh. I don't know what it is about. The title of Humpty Dumpty: An Oval by Damon Knight also made me laugh, so I checked it out too. Joseph was disgusted. Who goes to the library to laugh at titles of books? How embarrassing.

We are heading for Mt Hamilton again this weekend. Dave and Joseph want to work on the tree house. I will miss Janow. After being in Nevada for a week, I want to spend time with him. Until school starts, I get mostly weekends.
Next week we are camping at Half Moon Bay with the Boy Scouts. It's a family camp out.

what is up

This is what is happening now.












More tomorrow






maybe

Pyramid Lake

Finally! Here are some pictures of our trip to Sparks, NV.

This is Pyramid Lake. It's on the Paiute Indian Reservation. We stopped at the visitor center because we needed a permit to drive onto the reservation. Turned out we had to get it at the Nixon Store, but we got to see the museum.

Here is Joseph and me in front of the rock formation that the lake is named after. The rock formations here are called tufa.

There are lots of pictures here for Grandparents.

They had some great displays there, including some quilts. We met Ben Aleck, who went to art school in Oakland. I am in awe of people who went to real art school and was too embarrased to talk to him about art. I felt like such a bumpkin.
Ben told us about an exhibit of Native American art at the Wilbur D. May Museum in Reno, so we went there the next day to see Ben's art.

Joseph and Grandaddy by the lake. Amazing that a huge lake with clear water is right in the middle of a desert.
Us again, from the flip side. Most of the pictures make us look very very small. I felt very small.

Home

We are home.

We went to the art exhibit at the May. It was all Native American Art. It was great. The Ben Aleck at the museum by Pyramid Lake told us about it. His work was in it.
The next day we went to the auto museum. Also great. The drive home was long and we arrived with a camera full of pictures and a battery that needed recharging. That is what is happening now. Recharging.

Janow is doing well, considering. Silver was glad to see me. I didn't know if she would be, or if I would be able to tell. It was pretty obvious. Whiskers showed me the pantry, and Mary Shelley took until about 2:00pm the next day to forgive me for going away.

While the battery is recharging, I can show you some pictures of the other window shade that is in the ironing stages.

Here you can see how it looked before I put any wax on. I put a few details in Shiva paint stick. The composition book shows some of my planing sketches.
This is after the first wax and dye.
Here you can see the back after I waxed it and dyed in again.

Now that I am home, I am back to working on the silk screens for the tank that Erica wanted. I don't have pictures of that because the camera battery is charging and the picture card is full. Wait 'til you see the pictures of Pyramid Lake.

Pyramid Lake

We went to Pyramid Lake. It's huge! I couldn't believe there was so much water in the desert. No trees, very small bushes, almost no grass. Huge lake. I took lots of pictures, but you will have to wait until I get home to see them.

Living in the desert is different. It's very dry, so the air feels very soft. There is a lot of static electricity. While we were at the melodrama in Virginia City, I went to the ladies room. I plucked the tissue paper toilet seat cover out of the dispenser, but I pulled it hard enough to get it out, but failed to maintain my grasp so it went wafted through the air. I grabbed it easily and put in on the seat where it clung. It transferred it's cling to me when I stood up, so I plucked it off to send it down in the bowl. It did not go into the bowl, but clung again to the seat. I grabbed it off the seat to send it down and it jumped sideways and clung to the toilet paper dispenser. When I pulled it off the dispenser it jumped up my arm. I wadded it up and dropped in. What an experience! I felt like I was channeling Mr. Bean.

Yesterday was Paper Piecing Day One. I taught my mother to paper piece. It was hard, I was patient. She was pessimistic but she persevered. She started out by repeating that she could never get this! She ended up sewing away saying: "All quilting should be on paper, you can just sew on the lines." We made 14 flying geese units.

Today we continued paper piecing. It began with the knowledge that she remembered nothing from the day before. However, with me merely watching, she was able to get most of the steps the first time. She made 7 Economy blocks.

Tomorrow we are going to an art exhibit.

The Perils of Pusher

Whiskers is waiting for me to return.

It's a nice thought, but not true. She just likes to see how small a place she can hide in. She's a cat. Except for 4am and 4pm, when I give out cat food, she probably does not miss me. Dave is in charge of playing and lap. He is still home, so she is fine.

Last night we went to Virginia City to see a melodrama at Piper's Opera House. The Perils of Pusher was presented my the Misfits. We had a great time. Pusher was the name of the town because it was at the base on a steep incline where trains would need and extra engine to push them up the hill. They sang "I've been working on the Railroad." I laughed so hard. Joseph was embarrassed.

When he was much smaller, he was afraid to go as far away down the hall as the bathroom. When I couldn't go with him, I would sing that song very loudly so he would feel like I was closer. Then he could go. Dave didn't know about this until when he was home one day and Joseph ran up to me saying: "Sing 'I've been Working in the Railroad.' I have to go to the bathroom." So I started to sing at the top of my lungs and Joseph ran to the bathroom. Dave was bewildered until I could explain. Of course, I had to keep singing until Joseph was done in the bathroom! Dave does not like waiting for an explanation.

batik window shade

This is a batik window shade I was working on while my computer was under the weather with a virus.

It's one of two that are still in progress. I'm making them for Maura and Jeff. When these are done, they can pick the one they like.
I was afraid to make one because it might have fated me to accidentally ruin it and have none.

Here it is after the first wax and dye application.

Right now, I am in Nevada, visiting. I put these pictures in blogger as a draft, and I just have to copy them into today's entry. That's OK since I could not make any entries for a long time while my computer was down. The pictures stayed stuck in my camera.


It is still in this ironing stage.

These are really interesting when they are lit from behind. I also made some Jack O' Lanterns on broadcloth. The Boy Scouts have a silent auction during the quarterly Court Of Honer awards potluck. The proceeds of each item go into the individual Scout Funds of each boy who bring the item. I haven't taken pictures of them yet.

lick

Here are some pictures Dave took last weekend at the Lick Observatory. The air was so clear. Amazing after the smoke from the fires.

You can see the road we came up. One of the turns was so tight it had a mirror posted so you could see around it.

You can see a lot form up there! We took binoculars and just looked at everything.
Here is Dave by the seismograph. He has those flip up sun glass lenses so he looks real touristy. Never try to look like a native, people might ask you for directions.

Tuesday, he did not have those lenses. We were in the car and he remarked how much they helped. "Mom was right." So there you go Peggy! Thirty years later, you were right after all. But you knew that, didn't you?

Maura, I spelled seismograph right!

Beneath the Planet of the Laptops

My laptop has returned for the sequel. There are many pictures still in the camera, waiting to be uploaded.


This is the last saddle pad of it's kind for the summer. It's finished now, but this is what it looked like before. The finished pictures are 'still in the camera.'







over and out

bags

Bags? Well, the pictures on yesterday's post are saddlepads, not bags, but Ambleside Designs makes bags. Carryall size and handbag size. Not being a bag type person, I hadn't even noticed. I have enough baggage, I don't need more. But Kyra noticed, so even if you are not a horse person, you may want to look.

The bags Kyra mentioned are on this page:
Ambleside bags

I went to Kyra's blog by following her name/link in yesterday's comment. Can you imagine metal quilts? "No?" Go to her blog and see them. "Yes," you can imagine metal quilts? Not like these, you can't! You still need to go to her blog and see them!
Black Threads

Still no laptop.......

I saw the movie Donnie Darko. I had read the reviews, but nothing could have prepared me for that. It was very good, I have to see it again. It was weird.

Ambleside Designs

Look at these! Great saddlespads, each is unique. I don't know how they got the machine to do this. I wanted to do this, but found that I needed a walking foot to go through this thickness with layers, and walking feet are not good for machine quilting.
Ambleside Designs


Still no laptop and no pictures, but I have somebody else's pictures! Here are some great pads from Ambleside designs:





I put their link in the sidebar to the right.

still no pictures

Still no pictures, no laptop, no photoshop. Today I plan to sit and stare at Dave while he does it. I think that's what he has been waiting for.

BSA Troop 92 is going to Raging Waters water slides today. Joseph is supposed to be ready and at the departure point at 8:30. So far, at 7:47am he has migrated to the sofa. I have placed apple juice and bacon nearby. I have blown the smell of the bacon onto him. I think I'll go turn on the TV.

I don't understand these people who try not to move until noon. They miss the best part of the day. I have already read some of my current book: Reaper Man. I boiled another batik and it is now cooling. I finished prepareing the second canvas and blocking it out. Then I applied the first layer of color. Now I have two of those ready for wax.

After that, I cut PFD, four fat quarters for crackle dying, and three 14x14s for pumpkins. Pumpkins are fun to batik, and they always find homes before Halloween. Not like other holiday stuff that hangs around until next year.

I dried and folded two loads of laundry. Silver came out and went back in when she was ready for her raisens. She always goes back in by herself and she always gets raisens, or sometimes bannana.

I fed the cats. We are almost out of cat food.

Janow is much improved. I will see him after I drop Joseph off with his troup.

I'm looking forward to doing hot wax today. It has been too hot all week, the wax would not have hardened enough and would have wicked out into the wrong part of the fabric.

Snap Fish was having a penny print sale so I ordered a bunch of snapshots. The shipping is high unless you get a lot of pictures printed, so I save them up to do big batches. I ordered over 100. Some are copies for granparents. If they come, I will hold them for ransom. For the laptop.
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Just checked on Joseph. Still comatose. The bacon was gone. The apple juice was not. I woke him up.
"Did you eat the bacon?"
"No."
"whiskers!"

You snooze, you lose.

still

Still no laptop, so no pictures. I started two new pads this week, and completed the batik on one. It is ready for wax removal.

I had an embellished pad almost done, just needed to add the binding. When I started to put it on, it was the wrong color, so I picked a new color and made binding, but when I started to put it on, it looked aweful, so I tried the old binding that I had decided was wrong. It was much better, very nice, in fact. I don't know why it was wrong before. I can sew that on today and get that pad done.

I also did some sketches for a window shade. I came up with four designs, two that I like enough to work on more. I cut two pieces of canvas and got them stretched out on tubes, now I wait for them to dry. When that is done, I will look at my sketches again and see how much I still like them.

The the design on a foundation-pieced embellishment based on flying geese is finsihed. I drafted the foundation for a pad and a half before I ran out of foundation stuff. I can select fabric today when there is better light. Right now, there is no light, but the birds say it is coming soon.

Dave and Joseph are going up to My Hamilton for the 4th weekend. Janow is still needing lots of care and I am not going. If I went, I would be a mess and not have a good time. I would also be likely to ruin everybody's good time. There was a lot of pressure to go. I can't do everything. If I went, and Janow died, I would take the hate to my grave. Sometimes there is no 'right' answer and you have to pick between wrong ones.

I had a new primitive sweatshirt idea, so I got it started. Then I had another idea and I started that too. The next part is hand work and I can take it to the barn today to work on between handwalks and medication.

I can hang with Silver this weekend too. She is so funny. I need to get her a new project towel at Savers soon. The old towel piece is mere lace.

bummer fun

Summer continues. Having a preteen with friends on myspace has somehow resulted in my laptop being corrupted. I had just recently backed up, so a lot of files are saved. I have managed to save the rest, I think. Now the whole think needs to be wiped out and everything reloaded. I don't know when that will happen.

Everybody waiting for pictures is going to have to wait longer.

The Boy Scout returned from Camp Wente with three merit badges and ready for rank advancement after a conference with the troop leader. He also has some pretty good respiratory irritation from breathing smoke from wildfires. He wa shoarse when he got back, and has a bad cough still, three days after getting back.

As you may know, California has hundreds of wildfires burning, really, over 800 at last count. Most started by lightening. This counts as weather. We may not have ice storms, blizzards, or hurricanes, but we have this. This state leads the nation in wildfires, both by acreage and perecentage. They destroy homes and businesses, cause evacuations, effect health. Billions of dollars are spent fighting them. We are not dangerously close to any here, but we get ash falling on our cars, and the sun has been shrouded for weeks. The air quality is so low they are advising people to stay indoors if they can. People with allergies and asthma are having a particularly hard time.

Janow is still having a lot of difficulty with his feet and I am medicating him three times a day. It is wearing me out. I feel so bad for him, and scared too. That is throwing a lot of summer plans in jeopardy, if not out the window. I want to not care about my summer plans, but it is disappointing other people.

I am getting more pads started,as well as finished, but with computer problems, I cannot upload photos to show you.

I also have three good floor cloth/window shade plans and I need to prepare the canvas for those this week.