More Paper piecing and a rant about trees

So the paper piecing started with this star

The method is a 'new to me' no waste system

Where you fold your sections and  sew along the fold and not through the paper.

I like this much better as it eliminates the annoying, to me, bits of Paper piecing

The paper waste the ripping and the picking.

I can reuse the initial paper pattern over and over 

instead of spending hours picking whats left out of the back and distorting my stitches

The pattern maybe broken up into more pieces 

but the process, I feel, is more streamlined and easier for me to wrap my brain around.

So far I have 6 full stars and one half star

only 20 more to go!

And it fulfills my RSC Quota (Self inflicted, of course) with the center star! 

I still haven't decided if I want it dens-packed with stars or 

hexie rows with diamonds in between.

I have drafted and cut a pattern for the diamonds bUUT.....We'll see

*Rant incoming*

Poplar #2 and hubs taking photos for the neighbors who weren't home

In other news I have been dealing with another power outage due to tree
fall and trying, yet again, to get the city to take down the danger trees. No one was hurt by this one either, thank goodness, just 'inconvenienced' for a few days by power and cable/internet outage issues, and the neighbor across the street now has to have the roof redone because the tree hit the ridge line, which left trunk limbs on the roof and dropped the tippy top in the backyard. Oy.

and half of it still stands!

We have finally gotten to what, we think, is the correct department to do that. But it was so obscurely hidden in the Snohomish county web page it took ages to find! and it's not like the will just give you the phone number when and if you
get a human being on the phone either. the appropriately named department "Vegetation Management" was hidden at the very bottom of the Street maintenance under several sudinonomous tabs. it's like a state secret or something they don't want you to know!

They usually have a driveway and a bush on either side

Very annoying! But finally, hopefully, taken care of. Though a week after the tree-fall and initial surveyor, we have been informed we are on the "list" for tree removal. Great you got a time line on that? there is this other 80' ft tall poplar that is just as punky (I can stick my finger through the bark!) as the other two that came down, in what I can only describe as "barely enough wind to blow out a birthday candle". Waiting for the #3 to come down on it's own, is not an option. t's bigger than the other two and the only reason they haven't managed to kill someone yet, is by providence alone! 

You know the law of threes.

The power pole down the street about 800 feet

 and oopsie-poosie, does not cut it this time!  Whew!

Anyway I am going to make of myself a pest, until this is resolved, if I have to stay on hold till the next ice age or whatever it takes to get it done!

There rant over, thank you for letting me vent.

It's been a long dry summer

 It's been a long dry summer, 

full of dire portends for the future and 

small signs that "crazy"season may be on the wain

One can only hope.

Meanwhile there are things that need to be done

That all seem to be stuck somewhere in the middle

We started to cut down a few of our "inconvenient" trees this year back in may.

Intending to get them down and dusted by the end of June

Which didn't happen

What did happen was we discovered the poplars on the north side of the property are dead, 

getting punky and need to be torn down 

before they fall down.

Note to self; More plants may be satisfying for a while

and gorgeous 

but they do need to be watered every day

Sometimes twice a day when the weather doesn't cooperate,

Which it hasn't

So we galloped off to get us some estimates

Easy-Peasy right?

no 

You see the poplars are close to 80' tall

3 of the tree guys wouldn't even give us an estimate

the other 3 were varying degrees of almost $10,000 per tree.

because they would have to rent the equipment.

I'm sorry, what, what now?

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

This in turn triggered the insurance company to decide they wouldn't renew our insurance based on a fuzzy satellite view google maps pictures, 

so now (mid July) they want us to do their job with aerial photos to prove to them our house isn't a fire hazard    -.-

Throw in moss remediation on both roofs, ugh. 

and ick,   there is now dust and moss crap everywhere, 

Making sewing outside is impossible. So much for my happy spot this year

I sublimated my rage at the wood pile ^

It now stretches the length of the house and

Is about shoulder height

Since the insurance was being a prat we decided 

in addition to the front trees 

We would get down all the dead branches in the cedars along the western fence.

there are 25 of them so it took a minute.

The wood pile grew to a second wall along the driveway

which isn't finished yet

< this used to be a nice little cedar privacy wall,

40+ years ago.

It also started out on the neighbors property....

Guess who's problem it is now.....-.-

Anywho, we finally got the insurance company to renew,

 We have found a tree guy who already owns a ladder truck for the poplars so it doesn't cost the world to remove, yay!

Both my yards are still full of 

tree limbs and brush but that will be removed soon too. Also, yay! 

My inner German was beginning to despair of it ever getting tidy again.

On the good news front we have plenty of wood for us and the kids to run the fire place for the foreseeable future, if they would only come get some of it.

And my mulch pile is about to get epic.

Happy Valentines Day!

Sometimes waking up to a thing in place of your coffee cup,

Is not a good thing

Today was different

My dear darling Husband bought me a thing

A thing I did not think I could posses, because it's freaking expensive...

Enter man who loves me and wants me to happy!

*Squee!*

All the colorssssss!

 And I finally finished this

Yay!

Feeling my scraps

 I will argue here that Crazy quilts are the ultimate in scrap quilts

I might even go further and argue, Crazy quilts are the ultimate in crumb quilting

No fabric matches in any square 

is also harvested from old thrifted clothing

and is no larger than 2"-4" wide and 2"-6" long

Embroidery on a seam is no longer than half the size of the square.

In my case, I'm most comfortable with 10" squares so no seam is longer than 3" to 6"

Buttons are used with abandon, in blobs, sprays and scatters

As are beads and sequins

Embellishments are usually made from lace motifs 

Jewelry parts that are broken or have lost a mate

Every square uses no more than 3" of lace

The same for Gimp, Ribbon ends, braid and soutache

Lots of silk ribbon embroidery

Not that I'm biased 

I'll make a scrap Quilt out of anything

Applique

English paper piecing

Stuffed animals

Costumes

Quilts  

Even decorating my home with them

When life gives you scraps

Decorate

After a certain point Scrapping becomes a way of life

 relieving plainness or monotony by adding beauty of color or design or as is the usual all of them at once

Took a little trip

Time for a selfe in denver

Up Grandad bluff

 It finally rained here in the GNW! Hallelujah! And boy did we need it!

 Everything is greening up from the crunchy yellow and brown sear we had all this summer, though I'm sure the new complaint will be,

 "It's so gloomy out!" at today's sit-and-sew!

So what have I been up to this month? Quite a bit.

Camping

We took an extended car trip to Colorado and Wisconsin, to visit my side of the family, which was lovely! 

We filled our days with lollygagging and dawdling, talking and visiting and tons of sight seeing!

DDH over lacrosse

On the way home we stopped at rushmore on our way to Crazy Horse, 

which is IMHO a better, more worthwhile use of your time and money.

Crazy Horse

And seeing the hard work that is being done by an all volunteer group of dedicated people is inspiring!

Rushmore is the wort kind of Tourist trap, the kind you feel ripped off by. 

The obligatory rushmore

Again, My own never to be humble opinion

Though we took a nice selfie together!

Resting at Bears ears

Bears ears was also a lovely stop.

We walked around the entire base and took in the sights and the people who came to climb, sight-see and heritage walk.

On the way home we drove through the hot, in some places it was 106*! No matter how high we put the air in the car at that point you could still feel the hot trying to seep in!

Erstwhile travelling companion

It was so hot the poor car skellies hairdoo got seared!

We were gone for 3 weeks of Relaxing and then needed to go right back out again,

Off to Canada this time, for my best friends daughters wedding, that trip too was lovely! 

On the road again

Until we were coming home, into the teeth of  all the  icky brown smoke from surrounding wildfires.

 They had been raging on for months and are very hard to put out when there is no rain to help.

So we are home again and I have quilting to do, I have 3 community service kiddy quilts, 2 commissions and soo many projects to finish

but more on that later.

New Stove

So this is what I have been staring at since June 14th

Lovely right?

Yes, I did cover it with a stray piece of  wood, but still.

4 months without a stove is.................Difficult

Isn't she pretty!!

There are so many little things you do on a stove that you just can't duplicate anywhere else.

I now have a new appreciation for the humble stove

I did not have before and in fact took it for granted 

to such a degree, it took a month to not be surprised it was no longer there and another month to readjust my cooking to reflect its loss

I ended up, after a week of boiling water in a microwave, buying an electric kettle.

Eggs become vEry difficult

Don't get me started on sauteing, melting butter, searing and browning meat.

All things I do so regularly that not having a stove was crimping my style, not to mention my menu!

Thank goodness we went on a 3 week vacation, in the middle of this or I would have been driven spare!

Though the story is still fraught with OMG. This is nOt the stove we ordered from Lowes.

ThAt stove has yet to arrive, is still vaoprware, as far as I can tell

 because its delivery got pushed out yet another 2 weeks.     O0!!!

So! Needles to say We got fed up. When needs must Amazon to the rescue!

Lowes called remanded our deliver two more weeks on Sunday, so we sat in front of the computer for a couple of hours contrasting and comparing what amazon had and got our stove 3 FREAKING DAYS later on Wednesday promptly at 1pm.

A trip to the hardware store, not lowes or home desperate because they are useless, we are all set up and cooking! Yay!

This is why Amazon is eating peoples lunch. When the local's you try to use, give you no recourse and no feed back, both customer service departments on line, on phone and in store, suck hairy balls, I will truck with the evil empire.

 

Some day my stove will come

** Rant Alert *** Rant Alert **

 So my hypothetical stove,

That we bought July 14th

Has a new delivery date 

Which has been moved back,

 Again

From the original of August 14th, 

Which is why we bought the stupid thing in the first place!   It's availability.  In august.

 to August 28th,

 September 11

(I know, great date huh, what could go wrong?)

 and to now September 28th.

Now, I was willing, to buy a stove I knew they didn't have until late august, that seemed understandable, given the supply line issues the country is experiencing.

But this is getting ridiculous

It begs the question; Why are stores selling vaporware?

Why are they allowed to sell and promise items, in their stores, that they clearly don't have on hand?

Why are we, as consumers, letting the big corporations get away with this shit, with nary a whimper?

 frankly folks, I am desperate for some over easy eggs,

That I don't have to go outside and make on a camp stove, is that really too much to ask?

Kitchen katastrophy a saga in several parts

 So around july 1st-ish My 30 year old gas stove top decided it was time to unalive itself. 

 After a couple months lighting it with matches, because it's first symptom, was the automatic spark stopped working. Needless to say, we needed a new one for a while. We were just avoiding the inevitable.

Yes, it had symptoms, multiple. Over several months.

We thought, as you do, If this is the worst that happens we can live with it....

It wasn't 

Every once in a while you would get a whiff of gas and go make sure all the burners were off and the furnace and water heater were ok, 'cause they're gas too. It would go away and everything would be fine for a while.

Until it wasn't 

We were smelling more gas, more often and then the gas bill came. It was twice as high as it usually was. sooooo, this needed better investigating shoes. 

So I did what you do, I took everything apart washed it all good, because it may be last time I did this, I didn't connect something right, put it back together again, making sure everything was connected right, turned it on and it worked just fine, for a few days, starter and all........OK, then....

A few days later, the starters stopped and a few days after that, we smelled the wafting, again. *sigh*

So that wasn't it.

We took it apart more, switching the burners around and, again a few days of works just fine, followed by the same deterioration. Ungh!

FINE! 

During this time I had not been idyll, I had been researching new stoves , wow are they expensive! And on what planet, do they need to be connected to the internet?

One more attempt to take it apart fiddle with the electrical connectors. This is in the DDH's wheelhouse, My electrical expertise is limited to rewiring lamps and dusting the insides of the sewing machines,  so I sat and watched. This where we discovered there was a limit to the amount of apart we could take the stove. the top and bottom are riveted closed, how annoying!

Anyhow, we put it all back together again, AGAIN, aaaannd you guessed it, same glide path of worksjustfine followed by badness. Well Poo! 

With one BIG exception, One fine morning, I went to boil water for coffee and flames started shooting out of, not just the burner, but the knobs too. EEP! O.O!!

Quick as a bunny, I turned the gas off at the main connector under the stove........... HONEY!!!!

After testing this experience for himself, we finally decided it was dead. I had decided this at chapter FINE! but, well, you know. Anyway, a complete disconnecting and dismantle later we discovered the body of the stove, you know that riveted closed part we couldn't get to?, was full of water !!!!! (insert Flora looses her shit here) WTAF!. Which then proceeded to bleed all over the kitchen floor, Lovely.  -.-

*Grumble Grumble* 

One has now to assume the trouble with the stove started here, with the rusted out bits in the part of the stove that was inaccessible, and nOt where we were trying to fix it. 

*Fuss fuss fuss*

So we have this hole in the counter,where the stove is, now, not. and are waiting for it's replacement. With baited breath.

August 15th. This was the soonest we could get ANYTHING close to what we wanted,as  everything else was October.....November..... when hell freezes over..... this all happened around july 1st, so -.-

14 more days. 

I bought an electric kettle to boil water for coffee......

Gifties! Thank you Cathy!

 I have been trying to formulate a proper way of Thanking Cathy Kizarian of Crazy by Design, for her generosity.

To say I am overwhelmed, by the gift of three boxes of Crazy Quilting supplies is,             insufficient.

and the synonyms are all wrong for the feels I am feeling;

crush          defeat          deluge         destroy         engulf         inundate         overcome
overpower overrun        rout            submerge       swamp        bury               conquer  

drown        drub             massacre    overflow       overthrow    smother         thrash 

 

The synonyms for grateful aren't quite right either 

 

 beholden     indebted     pleased     thankful     gratified     obliged

 

 

 Here we go, Elated, thAt seems more like it;

 

 delighted         ecstatic         enchanted         euphoric         excited         exultant         joyful         jubilant overjoyed                  animated           aroused           cheered        elevated      enraptured  exhilarated      flying     intoxicated        roused            transported   blissful       gleeful    high     joyous

 

 

 

 Also feeling;

in heaven                     in high spirits                                 in seventh heaven 

 

 

 

     

 

 Yes this all seems better suited to how I felt opening three full boxes of goodies, full to the brim each one

of half finished and a few finished projects

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

three full boxes of

 

silks, velvets,  tatting,  silk ribbon,  black laces,  embroidery floss 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 and a whole collection of silkies! Woo!

      

 

 

 What treasure!

                         Eye candy!

                                               

Riches beyond measure!

                                        Additions all to my dragon hoard 

                                                

                                                                A prize to be pawed through and snifled!

   

 

or is that just me?

                                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

                                        Violet kitty approves this pile

 

 

 

 

 

Though she wishes I would stop dancing around it's putting her off her nap time.

Thank you Cathy!!!!!!!!!