Hot Glue

I have one thing I finished day-before-yesterday, plus two done yesterday, that I need to photograph today. So, no pics yet.

Yesterday morning is when the glue came loose.

I have been going like crazy since Monday, in fact, I thought Wednesday was Tuesday and missed getting Joe to hip hop class.

Going like crazy since Monday........not the most recent Monday, but the one prior to that one. That was the Monday before Thanksgiving, in which two of the five days were half-days at school, I, as the non-working mom, did waiting and driving for kids. The week of Thanksgiving actually had three school days, all half-days, in which our parent/teacher conference was on the middle one of the three.

I had a Doctors appointment Tuesday that I forgot about until Wednesday, which I thought was Tuesday, and when I checked my calendar, I THOUGHT I saw it Next Tuesday, which is December. I was wrong.

Yesterday, I got a call about rescheduling an appointment I missed on November 19th, which I didn't even know I missed because I had written it down for Dismember 19th.

Wednesday, which I thought was Tuesday, I went to Borders Books with my BSA script that I ordered three weeks in advance, to buy a birthday present for my sister. Her birthday was Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving....last week. When I got to Borders, they didn't have what I wanted, but a copy was in shipment to the store from the 'supplier.' I couldn't order one because the 'supplier' didn't have any more. No, I couldn't reserve the one in shipment because they needed to put the entire order on shelf so it would be available to customers. Evidently, I don't rate the Customer title. I had to come in every day and check for it. When would it arrive? Good question, three days to three weeks. But.....the Fleamont store had one, they would hold it for me. It is against policy to ship items from store to store. So I drove to Fremont.

I have ordered a new cell because I am never home and need to get messages at least. We do not have a reliable message system at home. The operators do not think I could have a call of any importance and I often do not get my undated messages for days or weeks, if at all. The new cell was arriving on an unspecified date, signature required. Perfect for the person who needs the phone because she is never home.

So Thursday, which I now knew was Thursday, I wrapped and packed the gift for last weeks birthday and I was going to USPS click n' ship so I would not have to drive to the post office and maybe miss my cell phone delivery. If I did, that would mean I would have to drive to FedEx that night, in the dark, in commuter traffic, to get it in person.

After 30 minutes and 7 failures to process my order on two different credit cards, I was faced with a trip to the post office, followed by a 6pm trip to San Jose FedEx.

That's when the glue came loose. It was hot glue and it burned.

It was after that when the terrible smell like an electrical fire started to come out of my washing machine. I just unplugged it and made another cup of coffee.

Monday, I counted my pennies. One hundred. I get a scone. Maybe I can get it today!?

The "Done" Pile and the "Done In" Pile

I moved three things to the Done pile. I also did a lot of other things, and now I'm tired. Funny how that works.

The blue horse is a medium. The red one is an XXL.


Sorry the pad is upside down. I have to fix it later. I'm really wiped out.
How do you get out of the inside of an elephant? You run around and around and around until you're all pooped out.

RabBUNzel back in the Tower

The rabbit has been reunited with her 11 yr old owner. That didn't go well over here and I can understand the sadness because she is a very nice bunny. Sometimes you have to learn to deal.
I was sad to see her go too, but happy that she is reunited with her girl.

She's Still Hare.

She is. Still here, I mean. We posted the signs, and on Craig's List. Yesterday I contacted animal shelters and rescue groups, and posted a sign at An Jan. One thing I have learned is that many unwanted rabbits get dumped. More than I eve imagined. It's a real possibility that this happened to her. She is such a nice rabbit, I can't imagine that. I cried many times yesterday.

I emailed Chris, because he has a rabbit, and got her some Orchard grass hay, which she really likes. Joanne, of Save-A-Bunny Rescue provided a lot of information and is mailing a rabbit care info packet with instructions on litter box training.

This Thanksgiving weekend has proven what I already knew: holidays are not good times to introduce pets to the family.

So here is what's going on right now(sort of, like on Friday....
These are sewn on now, and the blocks have been treated with Granger's, which has to dry and be heat set.
It's dressage size.

This will be on a primitive sweatshirt.


And then there are more horse Ts. I have ten in different stages of not-done-yet.

Bun

I was about to upload the pictures I just took of the projects I am working on today when Joseph and Dave came home from shooting baskets at the school yard. They found a rabbit. A very tame rabbit that was easily caught. The rabbit is now in a Postal Service crate on the kitchen counter eating lettuce and drinking out of Harley's old water bottle. He/she WAS eating the hamster food until presented with lettuce.

While Joseph and Dave were setting up the food and water and temp hutch, I made signs. They are out posting the signs and I am going on Craig's list to post.

This bun is very tame, I'm sure we will find his home.

a. Mountain b.Mole hill c.Ant Hill d. Not Of The Above

This has been my week so far and it's only Tuesday. I think. It is Tuesday today, right?

Today, riding Janow, he dove down and grabbed a buckeye and chewed it up. I thought they were poison. I jumped off and tried to look in his mouth and he spit a big piece out. So I dragged him to the wash rack and put the hose in way past his bars and turned it on hard. He must have thought I'd lost it. The person who is always too slow is hurrying him up and then attempting to drown him. Lots of bits came out.

I went around asking it buckeyes were poisonous. Three people more experienced than I am said they didn't know. Only one of them even knew what a buckeye was.

OK.

There is a buckeye tree on the ranch and nobody is concerned enough to know what it is. Probably not very toxic.



I'm not sure if Janow actually ingested any. Horses aren't very good at spitting. Janow is probably better than average. This is because he is not very discerning about what he eats if he thinks I will pull him away. He will make a dive for nearly anything. Sometimes he will pretend he is about to spook and then, when I least expect it, his head shoots down to grab a bite.

Janow is always shopping. He is at CostCo on Saturday when they have food samples at the end of every aisle.

One time he grabbed a big mouthful of stinging nettle. It stung him, or course, and the sensation was so overwhelming that all he could do was suck on it. He couldn't open his mouth enough to let it fall out. It continued to sting him while he sucked on it. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, but he was acting like a zombie. Then I noticed his mouth and I pulled his lips apart, but his teeth were clenched. I reached my fingers in between the incisors and the molars and fished out a big piece. Then I took him to the wash rack and hosed out his mouth. After that I made him a bran mash with anti-histamine.

Everyone said "Call the vet! Call the vet!" So I did. He told me that since I found the stinging nettle inside his mouth, the problem was clearly defined. He would tell me to do exactly what I had done if I hadn't done it already so he didn't need to come out unless I wanted him to.

Janow has a history of eating what he shouldn't. Horses really are people.

That quartersheet is for sale, Jnaow just had to model it. Janow doesnt have to wear warm gear now that I let him spend the winter in hair. He grows enough hair for an Austrian winter, but we live in Milpitas.

The back of the head

This fabric packet was my gift from my sister December '06, That's right, December '06! Packets like this are available in quilt shops and they make great gifts. You don't have to worry about choosing coordinating fabrics and there is usually enough for a project.

So I got this a year ago, nearly, and this is what it looks like today. It's really good quilt shop fabric and I like it. But I didn't know what to do with it, so I put it away. I've remembered I had it, and I figured that when the time was right, I would know what to do.

Well, yesterday, I was at the coffee shop and it hit me, right on the back of the head! Suddenly I knew what this should become! Now, where did I put it? It actually only took me about 90 seconds to find it. Anyone who has seen my sewing room would be shocked. It looks like it would take days to find anything in there, and half again as many to find your way back out!

After I left the coffee shop, I stopped at the library and started to find so many great books! Some days you just find more stuff you like. I was standing in line to check them out, my heart pounding in excitement. I thought. I thought some more and remembered back to ordering my decaf latte. I forgot to say "Decaf." My heart was pounding, but not with excitement.

But now it's the next day and I'm fine, and my idea for the fabric packet is still perfect.

Moe needs love

This is the tank I made for Erica using what I learned in Joy Lily's workshop last month. I haven't seen Erica since I finished it, so I don't know if she likes it. I think she will. I like it, anyway.





These are the shirts that are currently in progress now that I can use my craft table for fabric again. The weather is much cooler now so each step takes forever to dry. More than 24 hours for the first part. Sheees!



And this is Moe. I don't use him enough, so he made his appearance on Craig's list tonight. I hope I can place him in a home where he will be useful. He is an industrial 4 thread overlock. A really solid machine. It's always hard to see my sewing machines move on.

Back on track, sort of, I think.

Finally! I started painting the shirts I wanted to do. Sometimes I get sidetracked by other projects, sometimes I get side tracked by things other than projects. This was a little of both.

I finished up a watercolor that was for someone special. It not only took some time, but it took space for a long time because it had to keep drying in between steps, taking the space I could have used for something else.

I also spent a Saturday at volunteer work for a group I belong to that makes charity quilts. That was fun, but it took the whole day. Monday was a holiday for the 6th grade, and Joseph wanted to play with his friend while I saw Janow. Since his friend lives close to the barn, I was going to drop him off and then pick him up after Janow. But...the friend was finshing up a homework project, he would be done any minute. That minute stretched out to the entire day. Should I have taken a whole day to wait on someone else's child? I took the whole day waiting with my child, hoping he would get to do something he loves to do. When he is grown up, he will have to spend time waiting for people so he can do what he has to do. He was disapointed in the end, but not frustrated or belittled by my indifference. It was important to him, so it was important to me.

I made a new banner. It's hosted in the same exact place as my old one was, so all the places the old one appears will now show this one. Maybe. Maybe not. I forgot to upload it to my host........bbl


I like it better.

Anne, of Gomilpitas dot com, has been very helpfull again in steering me to Google Adwords. Here is the banner for her site:

If you click there, you will find out everything there is to know about Milpitas and home schooling. If you find her jokes section, there are fantastic jokes for all ages, all G rated.

Sean, take care and heal up!

Need New Flyer

The Electronic Waste Recycling Center is having a free pick-up today. There is a small charge for big items like washers, dryers and refrigerators, but not for TVs. So Dave took out some key components that he made need to fix the one we are keeping, and put this one out for the pick-up.

Next time they have a free pick-up, they will rewrite the flyer to include an extra charge for projection TVs.

Load Up

I finally uploaded to my website yesterday! I do it at the beginning of each month, adding new items and writing a new introduction. It always takes longer than I think. I know it will take longer, so I wait until the last minute to do it, and then it takes even longer than that!

I added pictures of the floor cloths I made, but they aren't for sale yet. Maura and Jeff are due a housewarming gift and they get first pick.

The file sizes of the pictures here are small, but if you want to see them in great detail, go to my website by clicking on this sign. Those are big files, you will get a McGoo view that will show every speck. The size of each is also given there.



If you position your cursor over the sign and wait a sec, the words "click here" will appear. Then you know it is the right sign. Use the back arrow at the top of your screen to get back here.



If you've never heard of floor cloths, they are becoming popular. Made of heavy canvas, they are used in place of very small rugs and inside as doormats. They are good if you don't have a lot of door clearance and they clean up with a damp cloth. small rugs and inside as doormats. Most, mine included, have polyurethane applied, giving them a texture almost like linoleum. Some of them have a rubber non-stick backing. I can that, but will wait until M and J have picked and tell me if they want it on theirs.

Most of them are painted. Mine are unique because I batik them with hot was and fiber reactive dye. The wax acts differently on the 10 oz canvas than on cotton broadcloth and the effect is amazing. I hope to more next summer.
I have to wait until summer because I do it outside to avoid breathing hot wax fumes. We get all of our rain in the winter here. Summer is usually bone dry. Snow is so rare that you can say it doesn't snow here.

Peck Peckety Peck Peck

This is me, updating my website.


It always turns out to be a bigger task than I thought. Mostly becuase there are always things to fix, that I was going to fix last time, but forgot.

This isnt a really new picture. It might be from October or September, but it looks about the same

November!

Joseph carved this pumpkin himself.


I carved this one. You can easily see how I and clean and carve three Jack O' Lanterns in half an hour!

Here is Joseph with his Trick-or-Treat loot, sorted into piles. Dave took the picture, I was too sleepy to look and see just what his sorting criteria was.



There is Joseph, the hatchet slaying victim, in plaid. The last Halloween Parade of his school career. The last school year where you are glad your parents came. Middle School next year.

Halloween was the day after the earthquake, so it was the major topic of discussion in class. Sometime during the day, the whole class felt a terrible rumbling and shaking of the entire building. They dove under their desks, all 33 of them, proving they had absorbed the duck-and-cover instruction from the earthquake drills. It turned out to be the class next door, playing Simon Says as part of their Halloween celebration. "Simon says....stomp your feet."

All Shook Up

Here is the pad I recently finished.


And here is the current Work In Progress.

What a mess!

National Sticky Month kicks off tonight with the gathering of the candy. Oh Boy.

We felt it. We are 6 miles from the epicenter of last night's 5.6 earthquake. We have no damage or injuries to report. Last night, when it happened, we didn't know how big it was or how close we were to it. I remember the Loma Prieta earthquake in '89. But this one was smaller and all the water stayed in our toilets. In '89, poor Eric, our fish, lost half the water in his bowl. Fortunately the half that remained in the fishbowl was the half that contained Eric.

Eric is no longer with us, may he rest in peace.

click here to see more stuff

Silk Dying Made Etsy

After much delay, I finally got around to ETSY. ETSY is an on-line venue for art for sale by artists. The whole idea here is that the artist is the one who gets the money rather than the gallery or the importer or the marketer. It's pretty simple technically, so it goes faster than listing on eBay. It also costs a lot less. You can See mine at doublecatbatik.etsy.com or you can just go to ETSY.com and search by seller or subject or anything. There is some really great stuff on there...........................if you have a minute or two..........or three...............

Here are some sweatshirts I have on ETSY:

They are on my website too.



I finished another saddlepad. I have one more to do, but I have to draft the block first, so I'm putting it off while I use my table for other things.

Things like watercolor--I'm still working on it. It looks different than before.

Silk Screens, I'm making my own. The first ones were a learning experience, so I'm doing those over.

The floor cloths are still undergoing finishing, but they are getting closer.

Dying silk was something I had never done, so I am doing it now. It's a little different than cotton. But all the cotton practice is helping bunches.

On And On And On

OK
This is what I finished today.


And this is still in progress.

I worked a little more on the watercolor pencil picture, and I finished ironing the last floor cloth of the summer(fall) so it's ready to put on finish tomorrow. It needs 5 coats. There are two more that need a trim before the final 2 coats, and two others needing one coat. Those should all be done by the end of next week.

I also washed my dye solution bottles so I can make fresh tomorrow, and I prewashed 12 silk scarves so I can dye them.

I finally went to the library, may fvorite place(almost) and got a book on Incan art and one on contemporary African art. And a DVD: Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Joseph and I made a video of him dancing SouljaBoy. I could put it on YouTube, if we had a digital camera, but we don't. It can be done, but it's a pretty big technical problem for me.

Many Things Today

Many things going on, none major. I started ironing my last batik of the summer, except it's fall and I'm racing the weather. It was a biug surprise to see how the cracks and seams came out. This is what it looks like. It still needs more ironing and finishing.



This is ongoing. It should be finished tomorrow and I have another one part way done.


I've been playiong with watercolor pencils and this is what I have so far. I'm not sure if I like it, but it's fun.

The sweatshirt that says "WIRED" is sold already. That was fast!

I opened an ETSY store today. It's a web site for artist to sell art. Everything has to be hand made. I'ts less expensive than eBay and the exposure time is tons longer. All fixed price. My web site will still be the best place to see everything, and you can buy it with there PayPal too.

click on the sign to go there.

I had to make a new banner for ETSY. That took about 40 minutes, argh! But I like it, so I may change this one. You can go to ETSY by typing it into Google. My store is called Doublecatbatik, but it you go, look at some of the other stores there. Fantastic stuff.....and Christmas is fast approaching.

Last, but pretty interesting anyway......Joseph found this game, it's pretty good, and fun. Especially since he needed my help.Get the Glass

He Said That.

I packed a little cup of natural applesauce in Joe's lunch today. Whe he came home, he ate applsauce. I thought he had not eaten it at school, but saved it for when he came home. He said no, this was a new applesauce. I said "OK." Better than cookies. So he said

"I don't know how anyone can't like applesauce."

Me neither.

Don't you hate it when that happens?

I have some good pictures to show you, but instead, you get to see THIS!
I just wanted a rice cake with peanut butter, so I got the jar of peanut butter out of the refridgerator, and I got my knife and the rice cake, and when I opened the jar, THIS!
I can see maybe not throwing it away because you don't want to wash the jar and put it in recycle. I can understand not wanting to open the new jar because you don't want to stir it, but put it away empty? It's not like there are so many people living here that nobody will guess who did it!

All I can do is post it in the blog and hope the right mother sees it!

I'll show you the pictures anyway.

This is in progress:



and this is just finished:
(it's backed with Minky)

and this:
and this. Click on the picture to see the killer details.

three jacks

Here is the floorcloth I made for Halloween.
You can see it looks a little different on each side. This is because the wax and the dye penetrate the canvas a little differently.

I didn't put the rubber backing on it because it has such a great luminosity when it's back lit, like in a window. It would also be great as a table topper. So I left off the rubber.



I listed it on eBay at a fixed price, but it didn't sell, then I took it to a tack swap yesterday with a bunch of other stuff and it didn't sell(no brainer there!) but I took it anyway. So I'm putting it on Craig's List. I'll probably end up storing it till next Halloween.

That's the hard part about seasonal stuff.

Yesterday was the tack swap at a stable near Indian Hill, then a vet clinic with vaccinations, then a Boy Scout popcorn show and sell. I was pooped. Dave made dinner because it was Saturday and his night and I was too tired to be talked into doing it. He tried hard though. He does every week. He started by asking me what was for dinner, and I answered his first question with the usual reply: "That's a good question."

He caved, or rather, I refused to cave, and he made salmon with steam-in-the-bag veggies, bread and salad. I told him it was the best meal he had ever made. He said to be sure I put that in my blog because he wants credit for it.