Finished Orca Bay - Now Called Almost Heaven!

My Orca Bay quilt is finished - and I have changed the name of it to Almost Heaven.  It uses the colors that I see every time I go out my door here in Charleston, West Virginia.  The greens are the grasses and leaves on the trees, the blues are in the skies and my daughter's front door across the street, the yellows are painted on the street and curbs, and all the other colors are in the flowers and everything else.  I have known for quite a while that I needed to do a green and blue quilt and this is it.  It actually is more green than it looks in the photo.  It will be hanging in the Viking Sewing Gallery booth at the WV Quilters Quilt Show, held June 21 thru 23 in Summersville, WV.  Every quilt I make I seem to think that it is my favorite but this one truly is my favorite.

Adam will be moving into the little house across the street behind my brother's house this week.  We are very happy to have him moving back to Charleston from Nitro, where he has been for about four years now.  He thinks he can come over for dinner every evening, but I have news for him - I don't cook so often any more!  It will be great to have him close by, and hopefully he'll see Damian more often since he will be so much closer.

Another near neighbor moved out today; she'll be missed in the neighborhood.  The Sigman's who live two houses up the street have their property up for sale.  They have been here longer than I have, and I have been here since 1966.

My brother is putting in an above-ground pool in the yard directly across they street from us.  He has been leveling the ground today.  I guess he has forgotten that Dad buried two dogs and one of my cats right there.  I can hardly stand to watch them work on it.

Odds and ends

I can't believe it has been so long since I posted to this blog.  You know, life happens while you aren't looking.  I guess I haven't looked around for a while.  I just thought I would add some odds and ends.

The first picture shows Rosie and Sam laying on my bed.  This is as close as any of my cats want to be to each other.  They hiss and spit if any of them happen to come too close.  I don't know why they are like that, since Sam, Sascha and Rosie came from the same litter.

Audrey and Jason are having a problem with identity theft.  They went to Taco Bell yesterday and their debit card was declined.  They knew they had money in the account so they came home and checked it.  Found out that someone had charged three purchases totalling about $1000 at Best Buy in Maryland.  They are now trying to control the problem.  I have decided not to use a card anywhere that they take the card out of my sight, like at a sit-down restaurant.  Audrey thinks this may be what happened to them. 

The second picture is the quilt I just finished.  I actually made the quilt maybe a year ago but I just finished the binding on it yesterday.  I gave the quilt to my brother, Jeff.  I hope he likes it.

I am still looking (off and on) for a new car.  I hate the thought of making car payments but I guess I am going to have to.  I still haven't found one that I wouldn't mind paying for.  All the new cars cost $5000 more than they shou.ld.  I think I will put it off as long as possible. 

Adam may be moving in across the street from us soon.  They told him he can rent the house, but I will believe it when he actually moves in.  He will be close so he can have meals with us and Damien lives only a few blocks away so they can be together much more often.  It's a tiny house but plenty big enough for Adam.  The rent is a little more than he is paying in Nitro but it will be worth it to have him so close.

I also want to wish Pat a Happy Birthday! 

This is Sascha

I am going to profile each of my kitties, starting now with Sascha. I don't remember exactly how old she is, probably around eight years old. I also have two of her litter mates. Sascha is my predatory kitty; she will catch (and play with) any mice or bugs in the house. Three times she has caught a mouse and brought it to me. Once she left a dead mouse under my computer chair. I only noticed it because I rolled its blood all over the floor! Another time she brought the mouse to me in bed, dropped it on me and it took off across the bed with Sascha in hot pursuit! I jumped up to see what was going on. She doesn't really kill them; they usually die of heart failure. She likes feathers and furry toys the best. She really didn't like posing for me here on the computer desk. She would turn her head every time the flash went off. Sascha loves to lay in the sunbeam and will claim any open window. Her fur is very soft and much like a plush carpet. This kitty is tempermental and will snap when she feels threatened. Adam sets her off every time he is here, he tries to pet her and she ends up hissing at him and running away. He is the only one she treats like that. She and her sister and brother were nearly feral when we brought them inside. It is only recently that she has starting sitting on my lap. I didn't think she would ever do that. She definitely won't sit on anyone else's lap!

Orca Bay finished to flimsy

I just finished putting the pieced border on my Orca Bay. I loved how it all went together. The borders fit the quilt perfectly. I also love my colors. The green and blue are exactly what I wanted and the yellow just pops! I need to find another name for this quilt because Orca Bay was meant to be made in black and white, like the whales. My quilt does not bring whales to mind! Something like Kanawha Valley Memories or West Virginia Hills. My inspiration for this quilt was the greens of the leaves and grass against the blues of the sky. By the way, the pattern for this quilt was by Bonnie K. Hunter on quiltville.com and it was the mystery quilt she started posting at Thanksgiving 2011 and finished the first of January 2012. After a certain amount of time she will remove it from her website and it will be featured in an upcoming book. I started my quilt the same day she started posting the clues and finished mine to flimsy on March 18, 2012. I hope to take it to the long-arm quilter this week or next.

I have some extra pieces made for this quilt and I think they are going to come together as a wallhanging or maybe a tote bag. I did not have any of the yellow string squares but I can make some more. One thing about string blocks, it is easy to make as many as you need. I don't particularly enjoy making string blocks but I love how they look in a quilt.

We almost got creamed today!

Richard and I went up to the credit union today and refinanced his Dodge Nitro. When we bought it we used the financing at Hurricane Chevrolet which ended up with Huntington Banks. We didn't have much problem with them but we wanted it at our credit union. So, after a ton of paperwork we will now save some money over the life of the loan since the credit union offered us a better interest rate. We also talked to them about a new car loan for me and got the application, and the assurance we will qualify for another loan. I need to take them one of my pay stubs to set this in action.

Meanwhile, and the reason for this blog post, we went to several dealerships and drove some of the new cars I am interested in. At Joe Holland we got into a Hyundai Accent and I drove out to the corner. When the stoplight turned green I started out while Richard was fiddling with the radio. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a white car coming straight at us. I screamed and stood up on the brake! That car has excellent brakes! The white car never hesitated at the stoplight, but it's a good thing that I did! We avoided a bad wreck by only inches. I am still shaking inside as I type this. We also drove a Chevy Sonic and Ford Fiesta, but I had too much adrenaline running to make any decisions. All these cars are very similar and I have an idea that it will come down to which dealer will give me the best deal. We didn't talk money today at all, maybe we'll do that on Tuesday. I am very happy to be alive and in one piece this evening!

Center of Orca Bay quilt done

This is the center of my Orca Bay mystery quilt from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville.com that started last November. I finally have this section finished! I thought it would never happen! I have been busy for days putting blocks together into rows and then adding the rows together. Now it gets a white stop border and then a pieced border made up of green triangles and white fabric. I need 100 of these border units and I have 29 green triangle units ready, so I have a lot more piecing to do. I can't wait to get this done. It is much prettier than I thought it would be. The blocks in the box when I was working on them seemed way too green and I thought the blue and yellow weren't going to show up well. Boy was I wrong! The quilt seems more blue than green and the yellow just sparkles between the blocks. It was a lot of work with all these teeny tiny pieces but I think the quilt is worth it.

Hoarders and new stove

I have been watching Hoarding: Buried Alive on tv. The unifying theme of these people is that they don't clean their houses! Now, I can ignore my messy house for a long time - but not for years! I told Richard when we got married that I am not a housekeeper; that I have many better things to do than clean the house. If he didn't like the job I did he could do it himself. And he has been known to sweep and mop the floors, but not much else. He seldom ever washes any dishes or straightens the living room, but if the ceramic tiles in the bathroom need cleaning he will jump right in there and do it. Anything else he will leave for me. Lately he has been lax about picking up after himself and I have to go behind him and put things in their proper places. Then I get stubborn and let other things go. But I keep trash picked up and the dishes washed. I go ballistic if I think there is a bug in the house, but I can live with cat hairs (for a while!). The litter boxes get cleaned often (very often!) and any cat puke is cleaned up as soon as I see it. I am bad about having too much stuff, especially sewing stuff. It is hard to put things away if there is no where to put it! Flylady says "You can't organize clutter, you can only get rid of it" and I have a lot of clutter. But it is not dirty clutter. I work in a mess in my sewing room because I get things out to use and then I am too busy using those things to put them away. I am going to get the junk out of the garage and use the shelves for bins of sewing things I don't use often, like Christmas fabric. Then I will have room in my sewing area. I still don't promise to put everything away as soon as I get them out! I don't want to be a hoarder.

My stove worked very well but the covers for the buttons had most all fallen off and the LEDs that showed what temperature the oven was on didn't work. I got tired of having to guess. Richard looked for parts for it but they would cost as much as a new stove. Richard and I went to all the appliance stores recently and there was an LG stove that was formerly a floor model at Home Depot they wanted to clear out. It was $711 down from $984. There were no nicks or dents and was perfect! It has a convection oven and a warming cap and is much better than I have ever had before. We put the old stove in the driveway and someone came along and asked for it so I gave it away. I told them the problems I had with it.