Umm, no.

Every year in December the garbage guys come around and ask for a Christmas bonus, which we give them.

Last year they had a bell on the truck, which they rang as they went, as well as calling outside each house. This year there was no bell, but they stopped the truck and called out at each house on our regular garbage day, in addition to picking up the garbage. I went out and gave them their ¢5000 ($10).

Imagine my surprise half an hour ago when, in the dark of night and without a garbage truck, a lone guy showed up at the gate and said he was soliciting the garbage guys' Christmas bonus.

Wonder if anyone falls for it.

Things accomplished by 9:00 a.m.

• Get up, get girls up earlier than usual. With everyone in a good mood.
• Get Robin showered/shampooed.
• Feed Robin, drink my own coffee.
• Check E-mail, edit photos.
• Comb Robin's hair.
• Pack Robin's snack.
• Drive Robin to school, wait for excursion bus to leave. Wave goodbye.
• Go to store for milk, eggs & sundries.
• Make cookie batter.
• Feed Julia, eat my own breakfast.
• Print photos on uncooperative paper.

Now I'm ready to pack my overnight bag and quilting supplies, take Julia to Yolanda's, and head out to my grownup sleepover/quilting/cookie baking party.

And everyone's still in a good mood.

Wow.

It's crazy, I tell you

Here's the quilt that was made with the materials I provided for the Scrap Bag activity. It's certainly not what I would have done with them, but I like it.

This style is called a crazy quilt, and it's different from other styles in that it doesn't have any batting inside, and it has prominent hand embroidery rather than any "quilting" per se - quilting being the stitching that goes through all three layers to hold the front, back and batting all together. A crazy quilt is usually tacked or tied at the block intersections or elsewhere to hold the front and back together, but this quilt is small enough (24 inches square) that not even that was necessary.

The quilt story

So it was an exchange we did at the guild. Everyone who wanted to participate put some fabric and other items in a bag, we swapped bags, and each person made a quilt with the materials in the bag.

The person who provided the materials gets to keep the quilt in the end, and by the materials in the bag I was totally sure who this quilt was going to be for. And I knew she'd like what I did.

I put decent materials in my bag, but had no idea what would be done with them.

In fact, I was very pleased. I'd say mine (the one I get to keep, not the one I made) was probably one of my three favorites out of over 50 quilts.

Others seemed to agree, since everybody at the party got to vote for their favorite quilt and mine (the one I get to keep, not the one I made) was in a three-way tie for third place.

Scary thing? The quilt I made also got several votes. I may hate that quilt, but I do know my audience.

Photo of the new quilt will be forthcoming; I apparently skipped over it when I was taking pictures of all the quilts, and now it's night time and it won't photograph well. Plus my monitor is dying and everything has a bluish cast (no, I haven't taken any medications recently, why do you ask?), so I won't even be able to tell if the colors are off. But trust me. It'll do your eyes and your very soul good after looking at pictures of that other quilt for two days running.

Light of day (and one additional detail)

The Stupid, Stupid Christmas Quilt of Hate

Is done. Ish.


Is the title clear enough? Allow me to elucidate. Quite aside from the fact that it has kept me up until 2:00 a.m. the night before a very long day, this quilt is not to my taste. Starting tomorrow, nothing that comes into my field of vision should ever resemble this quilt. Thank you.

The bare minimum

• Yes, I've recovered from the sleepover, thanks for asking.
  
• Details and photos of the dough ornaments will be forthcoming.
  
  
• The flowers are datura.
• Don't eat them!
  
  
• If you click on my photos for the larger view, you might get a file download message instead of going straight to the photo.
• It's a Blogger issue and is supposedly being addressed.
  
  
• I broke a crown yesterday, but it doesn't hurt.
• People love to recommend their dentists, so I have several to choose from.
  
  
• We've had two earth tremors so far today.
• The second one was strongish, but the girls didn't say anything or come out of Julia's room and I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to go in there right now.
  
  
• The rest of today and as much of tonight as necessary shall be spent finishing what I am trying very hard not to call the Stupid, Stupid Christmas Quilt of Hate.
  
• Okay, I'm not trying all that hard.

Flowers in my yard

Yep. 6:00 a.m.

Thank you and good night.

Well, mostly. But there are three down and the lights are out, so I'm going to assume that the two remaining will soon succumb.

If past experience is anything to go on, by the way, you'll be hearing from us again at about 6:00 a.m.