Coming Together

It was a busy day today. I needed to do the housework I'd been putting off from earlier in the week. Also, it was the day for my monthly pedicure...a week late, and so I was really needing and wanting it. After that, I needed to make a short trip to the grocery store. We're planning a camping trip to the beach this weekend, and so I needed food for that. We're expecting fantastic weather for our trip, and so I hope this forecast holds.

It won't be terribly warm, but you gotta love all that sunshine. Sorry east coast people, but I can't get over how nice our February weather has been. February is often one of our coldest months, and we have been blessed with gorgeous weather more days than not. 

Back during the ice storm in November, Mike and I bought some Yaktrax so that we could walk around on the ice without risking life and limb. Shortly after that, Mike put snow tires on our truck...something he's not done in the seven years that we've owned this particular truck. I told him then that these two purchases would probably spell the end of winter in Oregon...and in November, winter hadn't even arrived yet. Sure enough, we've not seen a single snowflake and only rare cold temperatures since then.

It reminds me of the time we single-handedly ruined an entire summer for our Oregon friends and neighbors by installing, first, an automatic sprinkler system, and, second, replacing our air-conditioning unit right before the start of the summer season. It turned out to be the second wettest summer on record in Portland that year, and we didn't use either the entire season. So there you go. I'm sorry to say I can't control this particular weather-related power we seem to have, otherwise, I'd send you east coast people a heat wave just so you'd know how much I love ya'. And I'd send you Southwest people some rain.

Putting weather aside, I did manage some sewing this afternoon. I'm starting to sew my Dream Machines blocks together. I have the first row of blocks and sashings together now. It's looking better than I expected.

Do you ever work on a quilt with a sick feeling that you're going to hate it when you're finished? That's how I'm feeling about this quilt. I'm trying my darnedest not to buy any more fabric in order to finish it, but I'm not entirely happy with the fabrics I have selected either. It occurs to me that this is probably why I don't make more scrap quilts. Often, I find myself gnashing my teeth over how they're going to look when everything is said and done. 

The most recent example of that was the Blogger's BOM turned "Joseph's Quilt" (a quilt of many colors). It took literally years for me to finish it, mainly because I was afraid I wasn't going to like it. As it turned out, I liked it just fine. It's certainly one of the more colorful quilts I've made, but it was also the scariest.

So all of that to say that I'm hopeful I'll end up liking the Dream Machines quilt as much. For now, I'm feeling slow to warm up to it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for sure, but mainly I'm just closing my eyes and moving forward, hoping for the best.

I'm pretty unhappy with that ruler fabric because it's printed crooked on the fabric. If it were consistently crooked, I'd just fussy cut it to make it right. Instead, it's straight on one side of the fold, and crooked on the other. How does that even happen? If you're wondering, this is Sewing Seeds fabric by Quilting Treasures. And Quilting Treasures, you're on my sh*t list right now for such crappy workmanship on this particular fabric. Just sayin'. A quilter doesn't forget these things.

Tomorrow is a cooking day. I'm getting most of the food ready for our trip, and so I'm making cottage pies, and frozen breakfast burritos, and I'm baking some cookies. I'm hoping I'll still have some time to sew, but that remains to be seen.

Before I go, however, I need to take care of some bloggy housekeeping.

I have it on good authority...two of you...that some of your comments have been "bouncing" (for lack of a better word). This seems especially directed at people with "yahoo" email addresses, but perhaps there are others as well. There are no valid comments in my Blogger spam folder, and so for whatever reason, some of your comments are being rejected by Blogger. I have no explanation for this other than having it on additional good authority...also you...that Blogger made some changes within the past two months.

Up until today, I had made no changes to my settings. My settings are the same as they've been for years. Nevertheless, this problem has cropped up. Since I know of no other way to fix it, I'm now allowing ALL comments, even anonymous ones. I happen to know that I'm going to get spammed by making this change, and so I've decided to start moderating all comments. Up until now, I've only moderated comments on posts more than 30 days old. Now, I'll read everyone's before they appear on the blog. It's a pain in the neck, but I don't want to miss any of your enjoyable and informative repartee. Maybe this matters not one wit to you, but it matters to me.

So comment in good health, and hopefully, that will take care of this problem. Please let me know if you continue to have problems. And, by all means, if you know a different solution to this problem, chime in!