Pansies & Violas

I loaded my pictures in reverse order again. Oh well. Most of them you won't really need to see any larger anyway. I'll leave the quilts blocks for last and that way you should be able to click on that picture to get a better look if you are so inclined.

I've shown you the bird bath I have in the backyard a time or two. A couple of years ago I planted some violas at its' base. In case you don't know, violas are very much like pansies. I bought them because this variety has the same name as my DD. I've always loved pansies but have learned from hard experience that they are pure candy for slugs and so avoided putting them in the ground for a long time. I try not to encourage the local vermin. This time I couldn't resist.

The violas (and the dandelions) are blooming now. This is the single bloom I could find that was still mostly intact. The 'vase' it's in was once a salt or pepper shaker.



This is how the rest of them look.


Some of the poor blossoms never even have a chance to open. The slugs eat them right out of their cap! (Yes, we use slug bait, just not as often as maybe we should. Even though we use the safest stuff available I still can't be around it so I have to rely on others to do my dirty work for me.)

When I saw this print at the thrift shop for only $3.00 I had to have it. I figured it would keep me happy even when the slugs were winning the war.

So far it's working pretty well.

Finally, here's an0ther batch of scrappy blocks:

My favorite is the Shoo Fly in the lower left corner. There aren't two patches in that block that are from the same piece of fabric!

Blocks Happen

Okay, enough with the chemical issues. (For now anyway.) Let's move on!

Over the weekend I decided I would make a pair of quilts out of my stash of batik fabrics, one for me and one for my husband. This would satisfy my need to build quilts a block at a time and give me the chance to finally use some of those luscious fabrics I've collected over the years. His would use the darker, muted colors and be very clean-lined and elegant. Mine would be tropical colors and probably very busy. Like I've said before, we're Jack Spratt and his wife all over again. We are constantly marveling that we have been successfully married for so long when our tastes are polar opposite so much of the time. Guess that just proves the "opposites attract" maxim.

Anyway, I spent hours going over magazine clippings from years ago and my favorite block pattern book (which was printed on safe paper with safe ink apparently - I had the spine removed and replaced with the spiral coil to allow the book to stay open to the page I wanted) until I had a pretty good idea of what blocks I would use for each quilt.

By the way, I wouldn't recommend this book for beginning quilters. You have to have some experience with drafting blocks to be able to use it to its' fullest potential. And there are errors - at least in the version I own - that you have to be wise enough to recognize.

Before I pulled fabric for either of those quilts, however, I had to put away the scraps and patches I'd been playing with. One thing led to another and this is what happened:

(The Bow Tie blocks were created as I pieced all these other blocks.)

There's no guarantee the batik fabrics will come out today either. I still have some HST's and larger scraps on the sewing and cutting tables. This may turn out to be another fungly quilt. (Or more than one.) I sure had fun pairing up unlikely prints and messing with color and value combinations. Turned up some more old prints that need to go away too, so I may as well let the fun continue!

Party Hangover

You know, the worst part of this MCS thing is that I just don't learn.

The sun is shining and I was finally feeling really good again this morning. Our local bead shop sent out an email yesterday telling us all about a sale that just started. The temptation was too great. I succumbed and drove over a little while ago. {sigh} I don't need beads for any particular project at the moment. My bead drawers are so full I can barely open a couple of them. Why did I go over there???!!!


After thinking about it for a bit I realize that it wasn't that I needed or wanted to shop for beads. I just wanted to browse. I wanted to luxuriate in the rainbows of color. I wanted to dream about potential projects. It was to be a well-filling experience. Oh well. Back to the blueberries. (At least I like blueberries.)

I have been playing around with pieces I've cut for the Priority Quilt I'm making to honor Terry Pratchett but haven't yet figured out how to put it together. While that's simmering on a back burner I sewed up these Churn Dash blocks from scraps:

I've about run out of the patches I pre-cut for these blocks. I had to restrain myself to keep from using up the patches I'd cut for Bow Tie blocks. I want those to be available for leaders and enders. It would appear that I need to create a new project for myself that involves making blocks one at a time. That seems to be the way I like to work when I don't have the energy to make a lot of design decisions.

In the meantime, my friend C~ was over recently and shared a couple of things with me. This is another quilt she found in a local thrift shop. The front is made entirely of polyester double knit. I think she said that part of the back was a juvenile print flannel.

She finds the best quilts at the thrift shops! She has a yellow and white antique quilt she found once too. It only cost her $3.00 and was not damaged or soiled or anything. I'll have to get a picture of it for you.

And here's what C~ herself is working on:

She's knitting a log cabin blanket! How cool is that? :- )

Pity Party

Let me warn you that this post is about my recent adventures with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

On the whole I try to keep a positive outlook in spite of my affliction. Every once in a while, though, one needs to let off some steam, let her guard down, be open and honest. Today is that day. It's sort of appropriate because my last post was my 300th, and MCS is one of the reasons I started blogging in the first place.

I went to the local discount department/grocery store yesterday to stock up on some essentials (Green & Black's dark - 85% - organic chocolate, sparkling water, organic beef broth, organic unsweetened soy milk, frozen organic blueberries... none of which is cheap!). I was in that store for only 10 minutes. I know because I looked at the clock on the dashboard of my car as I was getting out of the car and then looked at it again when I got back in. Not on purpose, mind you, I just did. I couldn't believe it had only been 10 minutes, but that's all it took to ruin my day and likely a lot of today as well. I suspect the store had just had its' floors buffed or polished. Having worked in such an environment back in the day I know this happens from time to time. The front of the store wasn't too bad because the doors open and let in "fresh" air from outside, but back in the back where the frozen foods are kept it was potent. At least for me. And then at the checkout stand there was another customer and her son nearby who smelled of laundry detergent. The overly fragrant kind. (In my personal opinion the makers of Gain are poisoning people with every box they make and sell. Tide is another culprit.)

I made a point of going to the store early in the day so I could avoid as many people - and their fragrances - as possible. What I ended up doing was destroying the rest of my day. From that point on I was a zombie. I put my Priority Quilt in the envelope for shipping (and now I have to find someone who can take it to the Post Office for me), and the rest of the day was spent mostly losing solitaire games on the computer. Oh, I did order four paperback books to read but they won't be here for another week at least. I wanted to order Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran's new book but I don't dare. There's no way I'll be able to read or even look at it without getting sick. Not unless I have someone take it all apart and put each page in a page protector. And then the whole lot will have to go into an old, already off-gassed, three-ring binder, probably 3" thick. {deep sigh} But at least I could look at the pretty pictures and read what they have to say. Oh well. I can, in fact, live without it. I'd just rather not have to.

My local quilt guild is having their annual spring retreat this week. The last couple of years I've made a point of driving over to poke my head in to see everyone again and see what they're making. I doubt I will go this year. Two exposure episodes in one week is enough (the art show and then yesterday's trip). In the past the building where they hold the retreat has been safe enough for me but I learned, the hard way, that there are hand lotions out there that are dangerous. Hand lotion! While I was visiting last year (the year before?) someone in my vicinity casually applied lotion to her hands. I had to leave immediately or I wouldn't have been able to get myself home at all.

So what, you ask, are the symptoms I experience after an exposure? The list is quite lengthy. And not every chemical creates the same reactions. Generally I know I've run into something toxic from the way my sinus cavities feel. That's the first alarm bell. Sometimes I can actually detect a fragrance or odor but that has become unreliable. My olfactory senses have been burned out in some cases and I can no longer smell certain smells. I may feel lightheaded or woozy. I may just have an overall feeling of nausea. I may notice that suddenly I can't keep a thought in my head or find the words I want. I turn into a stammering idiot (no offense to those who suffer from speech impediments) - or at least that's how it feels.

I confess to driving my car when it probably wasn't safe for me to do so. My judgement becomes impaired in subtle ways. Often it's not until I get home or run over a curb that I realize I probably shouldn't have been driving. However, it's usually the only way I can get home.

I have discovered that if I eat a custard cup of frozen organic blueberries as soon as possible after I've run into something toxic it mitigates the reaction. Not always, and not very much sometimes, but it does sometimes help. The headache that develops after exposure will not be as severe for example. Headaches are the big kahuna of reactions. For me anyway. They do not respond to aspirin, Tylenol, ibuprofen or any other over the counter analgesic. The only thing that removes a headache is something that puts me to sleep (and I don't think the headache actually goes away in those circumstances!). I have a very intense, dull headache this morning after yesterday's escapade. That's almost 24 hours after the event.

I also suffer from chills after an exposure to toxic fumes. Nothing I can do will warm me up. I get grouchy and short tempered. I'm restless but can't think well enough to sew or read or do anything. Or I can't stay awake at all and sleep for 12 hours straight. I engage in retail therpay online. I play countless games of solitaire. I overeat the few things I'm allowed to eat. It's just a spinning wheel of pain and discomfort everytime I try to go out and be a normal person, and then I come home and try to cope.

The tail end of the cycle is depression. At least I've learned to recognize that that's what it is. When I start to feel depressed I know it's almost over. And I remind myself that the thoughts going through my head are not true, not real. They are the result of the toxins I was exposed to 12 or 24 or 36 hours ago. It still amazes me that mere fumes can make a person react on an emotional, sub-conscious level. That is perhaps the most frightening reason to demand that manufacturers remove toxic chemicals from the products most people use every day. Never mind that there are known carcinogens in those products as well and that people are dying from more kinds of cancer than ever before. Honest to Pete, people, prevention is the cure. For everything.

Priority Quilt Number 2

We are having a lovely spring morning here. The sky is blue, the birds are singing, the ranunculus have come up and are about to bloom in my flower bed. This is the kind of morning I'd like to bottle or preserve in some way. Maybe now that everyone in the neighborhood has gone back to work I can safely go outside and take a few pictures. Yesterday was lovely too, and everyone was out working in their yards, running combustion engines of one kind or another. Those are just some of the fumes that make me ill.

In fact, it dawned on me that when I lost a few days last week (not posting between Tuesday and Saturday) one of the reasons was that I went to an art show Wednesday. I knew it was a risky thing to do, in spite of all the precautions I take, and I was right. I didn't realize how badly I had been affected until later in the day. Of course by then it was too late. Oh well - all better now.

The other thing that apparently kept me from posting was work on this:

My second quilt for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. I had just begun to embellish it the last time I showed it, here. It's a good thing these are small quilts (9" x 12" in this case) because once I had all the star sequins sewn in place I realized that they were overpowering the quilt. I really didn't want to do it but I went back and took most of them out, replacing them with a single seed bead. There are abalone chips thrown in there too to give visual balance to the embellishments.


The spider web was already in the scrap of fabric; I simply enhanced it with a bit of embroidery. The Victorians considered spiders a symbol of good luck and I have adopted that for my own work. That pieced "butterfly" was another stumbling block. Everytime I thought I was done with it I'd step back, have a look, and decide it wasn't right. What you see here is probably the third version. I originally outlined it with a red perle cotton that blended in so much it made next to no difference. The first yellow I whipped the outline stitching with was too bright. Now I'm happy with it. Well, happy enough to call it done ;- )

While we're waiting for the registration number for "Guardian Angel" to come in I am thinking about what to do for Terry Pratchett's quilt. I have pulled a couple of fabrics that I might use... but you never know what will end up in the final quilt.