The Struggle Is REAL, y'all

Google+ and Blogger confuse me.  How do they work?  Surely, not hand-in-hand!

There! I've done it!  I've said the words.  Written them, actually.  It's not that it can't be done, but figuring out how Blogger and Google+ work together is difficult at best.  At worst it's an up-all-night-headache-induced-painful experience.  

Check this out!  Somehow I managed to highlight every "u" on the screen.  I have since x'ed out of that but I can't tell you what I did in the first place.  And that's just a little thing!

At 4:30 a.m. I was up trying to decipher the directions for embedding comments on the blog.  I'm getting practically no comments. However visitors have sent me emails saying they tried. At 5:30 I think I've finally figured it out and corrected the problem. It's very likely that all I've done is made a mess.  We shall see.

Yes, the struggle is real, y'all.

Quilt Show! Krotz Springs Quilt Guild

Pam, one of my guild friends, and I attended the Krotz Springs Guild Show today yesterday.  We arrived right after the show opened and stayed until well after lunch time.  There were so many quilts to see, items to buy, door prizes, a raffle quilt and a trunk show.  In other words, we were busy! 

The space is a bit tight and many people attend the show, so each quilt is folded in half before hanging.  It's the one complaint I have about the show because attendees can't see the whole quilt. Sampler quilts are especially cheated since each block is different, but I guess it's their only solution for now.  The photos are rather odd as a result, but in my case, that's not the biggest issue anyway.






















So we attended the show on Saturday and it's now Sunday. Between the visiting grandchildren, a small attempt to clean the studio, and the slowness of uploading photos to Blogger, I am just now, finally, getting this post finished.  I have no idea why it takes this much time, but I am not the kind of girl who can (or will) sit around and wait.  

Turns out that if I don't sit and wait, the computer goes to sleep automatically. Nothing happens during that time.  I have words but refuse to write them--just imagine something you should not say. lol Don't say it.  Maybe don't even imagine it. It's not worth it.


















Pam and I got rather gaga over this hurricane quilt.  I want to try my hand at drafting my own version of the quilt, but it looks pretty difficult.  In the meantime, Pam is going to search for the pattern and templates.  I'm staying out of quilt shops until the studio is clean.  

And so, I'll close this post now.  I have more of my usual bad pictures to show you and will try to upload them later this week.  I hope you've enjoyed the few I did manage.  

Don't forget about Sunday Quilt Inspiration.  I'll post it tonight. 

One Lovely Blog Award

What a nice little honor I've received....an award!  More specifically a nomination for "One Lovely Blog Award."  Kaja, of Sew Slowly, nominated me, which is terribly thoughtful of her.  We met through her blog or mine: I really don't remember, but I don't think it matters whose blog had that honor.

Much more important is that we have had a wonderful opportunity to get to know each other.  She's a fabulous quilter who is brave and bold in her quilting.  She's also pretty innovative--see her "Built me a wall" post to see an example of that. 

Okay, so on to the award and its responsibilities:
The award post is supposed to introduce readers to blogs I love and which you may not have read before.  Those who accept the award are asked to 

•  Thank the blogger who nominated you
•  Share seven facts about yourself
•  Nominate other blogs for the award

I've covered the thanking part already (and I really do appreciate it, Kaja). So here are the seven facts about me:

1. I teach English but would rather be back in my library
2. I am not opposed to the not-so-new CCSS teaching system (or whatever it's called) and just want to tell other teacher to quit whining and teach already
3. I am an English teacher, so a red pen lives in my head, but I don't necessarily use it all the time
4. My husband of 36 years is the best guy ever and calls me sweetie, sweetheart, love, and doodlebug (yeah, it's like that--we're blessed, me more than him)
5. I don't get jokes.  Well, I do, but it takes a little longer in my case.  Now, if I know it's a joke, I can almost keep up.
6. I cry for everything.  No.  I mean EVERYTHING.  I may not cry on the spot, but I'm going to cry.
7. Hate TV, love books, enjoy movies, love silence, am particular about my entertainment.

And (drum roll, please) my nominations--in alpha order, of course:

Marty's Fiber Musings

Musings from the Deep South

Quilts and Dogs

Pin It Wednesday: Stupid Blogger

Oh my goodness, what is going on here?  I have to hold down the right mouse button to be able to type anything on Blogger, which means typing with one hand!  Not good or easy.  It only happens with Blogger.  I’ve been able to type normally in word, so I can type in Word and copy to Blogger but even that is weird.  If you have any clue what is happening, or why, or how to end the insanity, please, Please, PLEASE let me know. 

In the meantime here are a few pins from my latest board, “quilted, barns.”

If I posted some of these last night, I apologize.  There are so many of these beautiful, old barns that it's a little difficult keeping track.  How else to end this post than with a few stunning Amish-inspired quilts?

Quilt Count

I played on Picasa 3 to build a collage and decided to use it as the new background on this blog, which I wrote about here.  While looking for photos of pictures for the collage, I began wondering how many quilts I've made and how many I have or can account for.

Well, I can't wonder such a thing and not find out.....that would go against my being or bone marrow or soul or something.  I just can't wonder and then just shut the wonder down.  Maybe an rock could but not me!  So I decided to count.......

I have this trunk from my parents in the studio that I keep some of my quilts in, so I started there--12 queen quilts and four small quilts are hanging out and having a whole party there.

Some of the small quilts are draped over the quilt frame from my grandmother.  I think I counted ten chilling by the windows and taking in the summer.  (There are now dark brown drapes protecting them from the sunshine....wouldn't want them to get a bad sun burn.)

More small quilts are in the vintage boxes that we hung on the wall.  It looks like there are 12 having a neighborly visit.  Have you been adding them up?  I think we're up to 38 that I found.  There are a few in the house and the kids have a couple.  Wait, each grandchild has one, so that adds another seven.  

Oh well, enough of the counting.  I'm saying there are about 45 or so among the studio, the house, the kids and the grandkids.  I don't know how many have been sold, but I do know my sister Angie has eight grandchildren who each have a quilt.  Oh wow, I'm out of control and can't seem to stop!

Okay now, control yourself, Dee......CONTROL.   

Good girl, here's the stop--a question for you:  How do you keep track of the quilts you make?  Do you document every one?  Do you know how many you've made in your lifetime?  

New Look

I have no idea what brought this on.  I guess it had something to do with a blog I read recently on which the writer explains how to create a really cool blog header with photos.  I tried her method but ran into two issues: 1) I do not have the right software and, though it's free, I'm iffy about downloading stuff, then 2) trying to do something as cool on Picasa 3, I got stuck.  

Actually, it's a good sort of stuckness (isn't that a word?).  I was stuck building a collage.

In Picasa you just drop pictures onto the work space and then arrange them as you want.  

Easy Peasy!  

Fun, fun!  

Stuck!  It's hard to stop once you start.  So there I was, playing and having fun finding some pics of my quilts and then....I had an idea.  Apply the collage to my blog.  Yes indeed!  I'm all about having fun, being creative, and (here's the kicker) actually using what you've created.

Three days later and I'm still not happy with the looks of things.  I want this blog to be a new awesome, you know?  



Not the ordinary, everybody is saying it awesome.  Not just the everyday kinda cool, but really, truly, honestly, AWESOME COOL.  (only not that loud)

So, after building a collage, figuring out what Blogger is willing to let me do (there wasn't much) and fighting for days to do some little something, such as change the font size (that was insanely slow), find the tabs bar on the "Simple" design (it's on the bottom), put all the writing in the same color (never did get that accomplished).   [whew, that sentence frag is too long, I'm starting over]  So, doing all that, it occurred to me that I have lots of quilts.  I wonder how many..... 

So I stopped playing on Blogger and went to the studio to count.  There are lots, you know, a whole lot.  

That's for another post, however.  For now I'd like some feedback, so please take a moment to leave a message and type a word or two about the new look of the blog.  I'd love to get other perspectives, and don't fret over whether I'll be hurt if you don't like it.  I'm a big chick!  I can take it....honesty only, please!