My dad is doing great.  Thanks for all the support.  100+ stitches but he'll heal up just fine.  He's lucky he didn't take off half his head being so stupid.  I know everyone is laughing at him and I can see the humor in it, but I'm pissed off that he was even using a chain saw.

After talking with my sister, I found out he had no protection (brain bucket and other stuff), was alone across the street in the field and didn't have a cell phone on him.  He headed home bleeding all over and if it wasn't for a passing stranger who stopped and called 911, he may not have made it home.

If you are going to play with big boy toys, you better have the safety gear to go with it.  You better have a buddy with you in case something goes wrong (and it usually does) and a cell phone to call 911.

When cycling I make sure I have a cell phone, let someone know where I'm headed, all the crap you need in case your bike falls apart, a helmet, and basic food/water supply.  I have a few dollars and medical info for emergencies.

Enough ranting.  I love my dad and I don't want to lose him.

Please keep my dad in your thoughts.  He was cutting wood when the chainsaw he was using backfired and cut up part of his forehead.  He has at least 100 stitches and the doc said he'd be okay, but I still worry.

If you are using power tools, please take care.  It only takes a second for something bad to happen.

Cardinal Quilt Picture From LQS

I cycled 23 miles on Saturday with DH.  Woo Hoo!  He wanted to see the flooding and we followed the newly opened trail all the way to the start.  Sadly, it doesn't go near the river but we had a great time going up and then back.  Surprisingly I'm not a walking zombie so I must be in better shape than I thought.  Does cycling up grueling hills in 95 degree temps for 5-6 miles over the summer equate to 23 miles on flat terrain and 65 degree weather?



I was able to get a picture of the "Northern Cardinals" quilt that one of my LQS has on display.  I love how she did this:

 
I'll put some blocks up soon.  I have to redo a couple and keep sewing them.

Harlequin Wrapped Bar Tape

I saw a harlequin bar taping design online and thought I'd try the same thing on my bike.  I've never wrapped bar tape but know it's a tension deal.  If your tape isn't tight enough, it will fall off while cycling.  I must have weak hands because I spent 3 hours trying to get this design to work by wrapping the tape under/over and keeping the tension the same but it's still not right.   It's still not bad for a first attempt.  Well, try about 6 times on each side to make them equal but the finished look is pretty sweet.

I didn't know how to finish the bar ends and to make it all nice and pretty so I called up my LBS to see if they had time.  The guy said yes and to bring it up.  He loved the harlequin design but said it wasn't tight enough and that this kind of tape makes the design nearly impossible to stay on correctly.  Darn.  I really wanted this, but he very sweetly wrapped it up in the red bar tape.  It was previously wrapped in white so nice burst of red color makes it fun.

Go figure.  I felt totally in the way the past few visits but today we talked shop and how to wrap tape.  Maybe I'm far more paranoid than I realize even though I try hard not to be that way.

Dear Moda

Dear Moda,

I would think by now you would know what a square is.  You know, the one we all learned about in in geometry and every quilter knows how to make perfectly. Your individual "Northern Cardinal" blocks are NOT square which made for some fudging to make them a 9 inch square.  See picture at the 9 inch lines if you don't believe me.  (Top right hand corner).  The bottom left corner is where the ruler starts.

In future panels, please check that they are geometrically correct or print a label letting people know that they are not.

Sincerely,

A Blockhead

 

Cardinal Quilt Kit

Well, if the bike gods hate me today, the quilting gods do not (sticks tongue out at the sky).  While at my LQS looking for thread I found this gorgeous quilt kit using these cardinal panels from the "Northern Cardinal" line from Moda Fabrics.  The coordinating fabrics are to die for and I rarely say that phrase.  LQS said the fabric was getting hard to find as it's so popular and she only had one kit left after I picked up mine.

Here are the panels (cat is not part of the panel nor is included with the kit):

As soon as I get the rest of the fabrics pressed I'll put a pic up.  Bandit and Buttons are not helping as they attack the fabric as I'm gushing over it making pictures impossible.

I'm using Terry Atkinson Design pattern "All About Me" that came with the kit.  Terry's patterns are usually KISS simple to cut out.  Maybe I might get some real work done today.

Design Wall Monday

I am one block short of caught up with the "My Tweets" blocks!  I've been working on satin stitching this weekend with my Ruby as well until I ran low on several thread colors.

I went to my LQS to get them and realized my Mettler silk finish 0900 didn't exist in her store which of course is the one I'm really out of.  I would have to go to Papillion to another store as she has all of the threads Mettler makes.  The last thing I want to do is travel 60 miles for a 3 dollar spool of thread.  If I needed other stuff I could justify the trip.  I figured I'd order online but the shipping for one/two spools of thread is more than the thread.  I guess it's cheaper than using up all that gas though.  I really despise Mettler thread but it's local and easy to get except for 0900.  If I can, I get Aurifil.  I love my white cone of thread from them.  I think it's something like 5500 yards.  Those are hard to find as well.

Here are the blocks:

This one needed redone as I messed up the first.

Block Nine:

My LQS mentioned the bike trail is now open as the flooding has gone down.  Guess who's going after this post?  If you hear wheezing, a loud crash and some moaning, that'll be me down the ravine or tossed into the cornfields.  Don't worry too much.  I have my cell phone, emergency contact info, and my brain bucket.

edited:  NOOOOO.......  They open the trail for the first time today and as I loaded up everything I realized it was dark out where I was heading.  It's RAINING over by the trail.  The bike gods must truly hate me right now to do this to me.  It's been fine all morning until I decide to load up everything and head out.  Frickety Frack...

Make sure to check out Judy's blog for other Design Wall Mondays

New Tires!

I finally put white racing tires on my blue Trek today and added a computer.  I've been meaning to for some time but wasn't sure I wanted to pay 60 dollars a piece for the tires.  LBS gave them to me for 50 bucks and I couldn't resist.

I haven't had a chance to really ride her much this summer as my Madone is a much faster, lighter bike, but there's something about this Trek that makes her so sweet.  I'm not sure what year she is but she's a Trek 1.2.  LBS sold her to me for 300 dollars when I first started cycling this summer.  I moved up to the Madone 4.7 when I wanted something fancier.      

Catching Up on "My Tweets"

Woo Hoo!  A real post for once.  An energy bar does wonders.

I spent yesterday catching up on two of the "My Tweets" blocks.  Block number 10 came out today and I'll start on that later.  I may actually be caught up and can do some more satin stitching.

I hate leaves so I got out my software, deleted everything but the leaves and traced them out onto fusible webbing.  Here's the software:

Here's the tracing.  Yeah.  I wasted a lot of fusible, but I didn't feel like arranging all the leaves to save paper.  I've gotten faster with the software so it didn't take long.  I didn't trace out the birds because I need overlapping to keep everything together without having gaps.

Sorry about the lousy pictures, but here are the blocks I worked on yesterday.  I still haven't decided on the heart colors and need to finish up the flowers and small items.

Cycling


I got myself a new toy the other day for my bike.  My anxiety has been really bad lately and leaving the house to ride has been really hard.  I decided I needed an indoor trainer.  You can fit your bike into the back part, put your front tire on the block and off you go.  My house is a wreck, ignore that part.  Why spend a huge amount of money on an indoor boring cycling thing, when for a couple of hundred bucks you can put your favorite bike on one?

What would be totally cool is if you could virtually hook up your bike to a system and go through trails via a video game or something like that.  Then you could watch yourself fall off the cliff down into the ravine when you didn't see the turn.  That would be more exciting than putting a movie in and pedaling for 4 miles at 10 miles an hour before your body gives out.

If you have a wireless system for the back tire (see the small black area above the pedal?) you can track your speed, cadence (how fast your turn the pedals) and all that fancy stuff.  My Android has a couple of apps for cycling but I don't know if they would work with the bike stationary.  I do have an app for heart rate which is nice.  Don't know how accurate it is, but close enough.

My son decided to try it out and went almost 40 mph on the bike for about 5 seconds.  I can do about 20 mph and my body protests a couple of minutes later.  I have to remember I'm 36 and not 15 and invincible.

I haven't posted since standing at an ironing board hurts my back and makes fusing fabric really hard.  It's like my lower back is sinking into my hips and butt.  Even sitting down to iron hurts.  A kitten doesn't help either.  Last thing I want is Buttons to burn herself out of curiosity.  Both of my cats go bananas when I sit down to sew hoping they can dig through the drawers in search of bobbins.  Their favorite game is drop them in the tub and play hockey.  You can hear "plink", "plink", "plink" for hours.

I didn't do my back any favors when I cleaned up three bikes a couple of days.  Putting them on the bike stand and taking them off wasn't helping and even though I was sitting down on a chair to clean them, my back still aches.  However; the bikes ride beautifully after a good chain cleaning.  It's like when you clean out your bobbin case of lint and threads and your machine runs beautifully again.  Which reminds me I need to do that.  Satin stitching makes a huge mess of lint in your bobbin case.

Hopefully I can get another post up soon with some pics once I feel a little better.

Late Design Wall Monday

I have pics of the "My Tweets" now.  I'm still not done and will have to redo two blocks that didn't fuse right. Here you go with the satin stitching.  Check out Judy's blog for more blogs.

Cycling:

I found this shirt and couldn't resist.

BTW, if you happen to have a retail store bike it's all good.  It's just a funny shirt that I couldn't resist.  Love whatever bike you have regardless of where you got it.  I haven't had the courage to walk into Wally World with it on yet.

My wireless sensor went out on my today on my Madone.  I'm guessing I did around 5 miles.  I only stopped because it was getting hot and between pedestrians and cars, it just wasn't safe for an inexperienced rider like me.

I tried out some new energy gel called GU energy gel to see how it worked.  I'm not into energy drinks and specialty products but with cycling you need something.  The last thing I tried was some fizzy stuff that made me puke when I got home after one sip.  This stuff wasn't too bad and kept it down the entire time I was out.  I had DH try some and he was the one gagging on it.  It was pretty funny watching the look on his face.