Another Very Good Gardening Day

It was a very good gardening weekend.

I made a lot of progress in the "spare room window / utility area" ...




I built up the berm around the foundation to help keep the water away from that area - we tend to have water over-run at this spot, the gutters seem insufficient to handle the convergence of water in the corner, and I don't want it puddling up against the foundation. Got the rain barrel painted and set up - I thought I'd gotten beige paint, but turns out I got dark brown. That's okay too, though. I didn't think about painting the PVC pipe until it was all set up, and I'm unsure whether I'm going to do that or not. If I do, it won't be that dark brown. I considered an antique brass or something, make it look all steampunky. I'll have to think on that.

But one of the real surprises this weekend is, I actually got to begin branching out into the rest of the yard - out of the 'dining room garden,' which is the only place I've been working for the past two years. The way things were going, I thought it might be another year or two before I got this far.

This is the next area of interest ... "the lamp post area," and around behind the tree.


Here's the area before ...




... and after. The grass was growing in this area only in sporadic clumps, not a solid lawn - so I had no compunction about getting in there with the trowel and just digging up the clumps, to clear out that space. And I cleaned up my little rose - in the picture above you can barely see it, it's to the left of the lamp post and clematis.


I'm pretty sure this rose is close to 15 years old. My dad got it for me not long after I'd bought the old house, which was in 1994 - so I probably got the rose in 1996 or so. It occasionally dies back almost completely, then rallies. That's what it did this winter - the whole top of it was dead, with just this little bit of new growth at the bottom. So when I was working in this area this weekend, I was able to clean it up, pruning off the dead bits, clearing away the grass that was growing up through the middle of it. Now it should do much better.

Since I can't do the whole yard, or even a very large chunk of it, all at once, I have to work in small sections. I'd decided to focus next on that area behind the tree and in front of the line of shrubs, and around the lamp post. Now that I've got a good start, the next steps are (a) make sure I have soaker hose throughout the area; (b) get the additional rain barrels (one won't be enough to keep this area well-watered later in the season when it doesn't rain much); and (c) choose the plants I want to put here. There's not much more grass growing in that area, anyway, so that's not much of an issue.

The soaker hose that runs along the fence line for the impatiens is long enough to wrap around into this area a bit, and I already have the second soaker hose ready to install. I'm just waiting for Star Supply to get those rain barrels in, or else find an alternate source for them. The area they're going (next to the existing one) is all set up and ready for them.

Finding a good variety of shade plants, and figuring out how to plant under that tree, had been primarily what held me back from doing more out here last year. But today, I found something that's going to help enormously:


I ran onto this book that seemed to be written just for me ... all about creating wonderful landscapes in shady areas, even under established trees, like what I have to deal with in the front yard. The author goes into good detail about what you have to do to plant gardens in and around tree roots without harming the tree, so finally - some good information on how this is done. This has finally encouraged me that I can actually do this, the way I envision it.

There are two problems planting underneath an established tree. One, the new plants tend to not do well, as they have to compete with the tree roots for moisture and nutrients, and a large established tree usually wins. And two, you have to be careful not to damage the tree itself. For example, digging even the smallest plant hole around a tree with shallow roots (like my maples) can be a real challenge, but you can't just haul in a foot of topsoil and dump all over the place, as tree roots - odd as this seems, being underground - have to breathe. If you dump too much on top of the ground, they will 'suffocate' and weaken the tree, if not kill it eventually.

So planting under a tree takes some planning and finesse. But this book explains several ways to solve those problems (which I'll post about when I do the actual work), so ... I'm encouraged. I think it will also help that I'll be doing this in stages, so that any changes I make that the tree has to adjust to will only be around part of its root system, not the whole thing at once.

The book also has hundreds of plants that will do well in this type of environment. That's a bonus, as other plants books I have or have looked at cover plants for all areas, which means that 75% of the plants in the book are for sunny areas, and no use to me, yet anyway. Having a book dedicated to nothing but shade plants is really helpful, and I shouldn't have any problem finding a nice variety to fill out my garden.

So, lots of progress for so early in the year. I think this will be a good year for the garden.

Ahhh ... The Magic Of Dirt

Today was good. I've been having a rather rough time lately, but today helped. The weather was decent, and I spent almost the entire day playing in the dirt. Though I'm now exhausted and in a lot of pain, it's a better pain than I'm used to ... and I realized I didn't think about anything disturbing all day. There's much to be said for the magic of dirt.

While I still haven't managed to branch out from my initial limited area of focus - the 'dining room garden' as I call it, as it's the area right outside the dining room door - at least I did make major progress in that area.

This section, known as the "spare room window garden" - because it's underneath the spare room window - is undergoing transformation.


I planned, last year, to plant it up and even have a little fountain of some type. But I've since scrapped that idea. First, I plan to add two more rain barrels over here (if Star Supply ever gets any more of these white barrels in, which they claim they will, some day ...) and that's going to take up a lot of room, and also detract from the gardeny prettiness of the area anyway (though I do plan to paint them beige and try to make it look somewhat decent). Also, with the addition of the garden hose thingy and a wish to expand the area available for the table and chairs by adding some patio blocks alongside the sidewalk, I just decided to turn this into more of a utility area.

Oh, yeah - the garden hose thingy - been wanting one of these forever.


Love it. The connector hose (the yellow one) is a little long, but it happened to be laying around with the proper ends already on it, so I didn't want to re-do it to change the length. I'm not 100% sure where this hose holder will ultimately be, after that shrub is relocated, so for now I'm just letting it hang out here till I sort it all out. Then I'll adjust the feeder hose.

Last year I had planted two hostas, a bleeding heart, and a fern over there. I moved the two hostas today, but haven't moved the bleeding heart yet as I'm not sure where it's going. I think I killed the fern ... it's under the awning and so got no natural rainwater at all, which means I'd have had to have been watering it this spring, but the rain barrel was disconnected for winter and not hooked back up, and I basically just forgot to water it with the hose. So ... no fern. :(

But, I'll give it a few more weeks, as I remember a fern I had once before, at the old house, never began to come up until like June. So just in case, I'll keep an eye on it.

Meanwhile, I still have work to do in this area, but didn't get to it today because I was busy with the rest of this.

This is the 'dining room window' area, which is coming along nicely. Though I can never get a decent picture of it, it looks much better in person ...


The azaleas always look scraggly, which may be because they kind of still are. They're only a year or two old, so still establishing themselves. After they bloom this year, I plan to prune them up a little bit, as I've read that doing so will make them fuller and bushier, instead of spindly and leggy like they are now.

I added the two hostas I moved from the 'spare room window garden' behind them, and also a new fern which I just got today (to replace the one I :( killed ... though if it does survive, I have other places to move it to). As I mentioned, in person, it looks really cool - even though it's all "just green," the different shades and textures make for a really awesome look.


Right now it looks a little odd because the hostas and fern, which are behind the azaleas, are smaller than the azaleas. But I'm going to wait and see how this plays out, because (a) I have no intention of moving those azaleas, and (b) hostas can get huge (I had a couple monstrous ones at the old house) and that fern - a Japanese Painted Fern - is supposed to also get quite large - though I find it hard to believe, the plant tag said, I think, something like 24" to 36". Wow. So if they do as I believe they will, and if I keep the azaleas pruned, then it should all work out okay, size-wise.

I also spent a lot of time fixing up the soaker hose today. I had it all laid out and staked down from the last (only) warm weekend we had this spring, but ended up completely taking it up and starting over. Then I went to put my splitter / valve in. As I mentioned before, the hostas and fern are totally under the awning and so will get no natural rain, and will need watered regularly using the rain barrel. However, everything from there forward will get rain. I couldn't just open up the rain barrel and water the whole bed when the rest of it had had plenty of rain, or I'd flood out the front. So I cut the soaker hose and intended to put in a connector valve, so I can close off the bottom half and, when I need to, only water the hostas and fern. But I had the wrong size connectors, so ... another trip to Home Despot tomorrow. Oh damn. ;o)

Then, the coup de grace.




I bought a flat of Impatiens today, and actually got them planted. Well, most of them. And yeah, this looks like nothing right now ... but I know that these will take off and fill this area entirely by mid-summer.

Tomorrow (or the next time I get to work out here) I'm going to be placing another soaker hose along here, which will eventually get connected to the other rain barrel (the white one). So these Impatiens will be getting supplemental water from the rain barrel, which means I know they'll do astoundingly well.

This has been the bane of my existence for many years, I'd buy flowers but be unprepared to plant them when I bought them, and often just leave them to end up dying in their flats (exactly what I did last year). I hate when I do that. This year, that's not happening, because I had all the planting beds ready (for a change) when I got them, and I didn't buy too many at once - just the ones I knew I could actually get to today (or soon).

Okay, I didn't actually get them all planted, only because I'm now crippled with pain from the day's work and had to stop. But if it doesn't rain all day tomorrow, I'll be back to it and finish up then. The ones that are left are going in front of the azaleas. I'd like to add a little more variety to the garden, instead of all impatiens for annuals, but I haven't consulted my gardening books yet this year, and am unsure what other annuals (or small-sized perennials) I can plant in front of the azaleas, where it is mostly shady all day long. Last year I tried some violas, but they did lousy ... in part because I think they need more sun, and in part because I didn't have the soaker hose hooked up and so didn't get them watered enough. So for now, at least I know Impatiens will work.

I'm learning, slowly - pay attention to the growing environment and work with it. You can't plant things that need 8 hours of sun in a spot that's deep shade all day. Duh. And while I have no issue with annuals - largely because they're wonderful in that they often bloom all season - eventually I'd like to have the garden be primarily perennials, and native perennials at that. Still working on that.

So that was my day ... and I'm very pleased, and looking forward to working out there more in the coming weeks.

Soon I hope to begin branching out to past the fence, behind the tree, and the area around the lamp post. I want to plant more native perennials out there, and add a bird bath. Baby steps ... but I'm on my way to that NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat which is half the goal of all this landscaping - the other half being just because I've always wanted to do this, have really nice gardens and landscaping - and finally have a place where it will actually look like something. (but inviting the local critters to hang out and be comfy in my yard is a huge, huge bonus!)

Something I Ran Onto Today

After an initial interest, I quickly grew sick to death of Charlie Sheen. But this ... this is funny.

Venturing Into Making Things

It's been awhile since I had any interest in making anything. But something's come up. Greg's hosting a non-SCA event in a few weekends (it's a get-together for friends in our pirate group, but not an 'official' SCA event). There are going to be some friendly competitions, and he wanted splashy award medallions for the champions in each competition. We were going to try casting them in pewter, but then the idea came up to try making them out of clay.

Here's a picture of 4 of them, one done (but a prototype), the others in process.


I'm experimenting with a variety of techniques on these. I cut out the disk shape, then impressed the celtic knot motif by pressing a metal pendant I have into the clay. (It doesn't show up well in these pictures, it's the ring in the center). The pendant also has a center design, but I didn't want that on these pieces, so after impressing it in the clay, I smoothed out the center section again. Then I brushed gold mica powder over the celtic knotwork.

Then Greg looked up a Gaelic translation of certain phrases having to do with each award (I can't now remember the translation) and I painted those on each medallion (after these pictures were taken ... obviously). I didn't have a paint brush small enough for the fine work, so I used the end of a larger sized tapestry needle.

On the back I used another technique. Using my ink jet printer and some T-shirt iron-on transfer paper, I printed the name of the event and the date. Then I cut out the iron-on transfer into a circle the size of the medallion, placed it on a tile (just glazed wall tiles I use for baking some clay pieces), and coated it with Translucent Liquid Sculpey. Then I baked it for 30 minutes . When cool, the paper peels off and leaves just a thin translucent rubbery piece with the print on it, almost like a decal. Then I glued that to the back of the medallion. I forgot to take a picture of that, but I will next time ... it's a very cool technique. You can use it for pictures too.

I outlined the weapons with small rolls of clay (produced by way of an extruder, as I'd never be able to roll them that thin, evenly). On the one that's done, I placed a sliver of silver clay under the sword blade. I did the same on the music notes (but with beige clay) but not with the throwing axe or arrow.

This was to act as background for another technique I'm experimenting with: resin. I saw this in a magazine and have been wanting to try it, using tinted resin to create a sort of enameled look.

After looking at what was available at the local store (not much), I chose Easy Cast.


It comes with two bottles which you have to mix together in equal portions ... but it comes with no measuring cups. So I improvised.

I bought a package of 50 disposable 'shot glasses' at the local liquor store for a few bucks. Then I used a syringe I had on hand (for measuring and dispensing some liquid medicine Tyler was on a few months ago) to place a certain amount of water into one of the cups, and marked a line where the water came to with a Sharpie. I then added the same amount of water again, and marked the second line. Then I had two equal measurement marks for pouring in the resin mixes.


For the medallion with the sword, I mixed up the resin and tinted it purple. I forgot to take a close-up picture of that. It's not quite the 'enameled' look I was going for, though, but it still looks interesting.

I'll be using the tinted resin in the other pieces, in the point of the arrow, the handle and axe head of the axe, and the (beige-backed) music notes. Not all purple, I'll experiment with different colors. The resin didn't come with tint, but the store separately sold a package of three resin dyes, yellow, blue and red. With those I can mix a few different tints.

The Easy Cast worked well. It was incredibly easy to mix, and to tint. When I was first done mixing, it was full of tiny bubbles - something I heard can be a problem in resin casting. But I filled in the outlined sword blade with it, and noticed far fewer bubbles once it was in place. And the few that were there disappeared over the next 15 or 20 minutes as it began to set. I also noticed that what was left in the mixing cup initially was fully of miniature bubbles, but as it set, they too disappeared. The instructions say that it is designed to "de-bubble itself" (they used a more 'formal' term, I can't remember it) as it sets up, and apparently it's true.

I mentioned the finished medallion is only a prototype ... it was initially my experimental piece, but as it was turning out well, I'd hoped to just use it as a final piece. But tonight I noticed a typo in the printed words on the back. It doesn't quite match the others in size anyway, and now that I've got the techniques done, it won't take long to make one more.

To finish the others, I need to print the backing piece (after correcting the typo) and attach that; create the frame and hanging loop and attach that; and then just enamel the center piece, coat the rest with glaze (to protect the paint), and ... that's about it.

I have some other projects I'd like to try using the resin technique for, after these medallions are finished.

A Tease Of Spring

Yesterday it was 80 degrees here ... a welcome hint of spring. I spent several hours outside doing garden work.

Last year I felt like I hadn't gotten anything done, as the areas I worked on really didn't look like much throughout the summer. But yesterday, when I began cleaning those areas up and getting them ready to plant, I was able to see just how much I did get accomplished last year in prepping these areas for future use, because it's all starting to come together exactly as I hoped. This year I didn't have to do a ton of work to ready them - just rake out some dead leaves, and lay out some soaker hose. So when the plants are available, I'm ready to go get them and plant.

I did have to fix the one (store-bought) rain barrel but that was because it was bought late last year and never really fixed then. I bought the one decorative rain barrel because it was in a more visible location, and I wanted that one to look nice. But it's a bad design, where the hose running from the barrel to the downspout has to be exactly level to work. When I set it up last year I didn't get it exactly level, so what happened was that the water would run in to the barrel, but it wouldn't drain back into the downspout when it was full; so the first time it got full, it overflowed around the lid, flooding the flower bed. I unhooked it and never used it the rest of the year.

Yesterday I finally leveled it completely, so now it ought to work fine throughout the season. I also laid out the soaker hose in that bed, staking it down with little tent stake like things that actually came with our Christmas yard decorations to hold them in place.


The section in the back (behind the scraggly looking azaleas) is still not staked because I don't know exactly what I'm planting back there yet, so I needed to leave it until stuff's planted. Then I can loop the hose around the base of the plants and stake it down. I may mulch as well, which will help bury / cover up the soaker hose, though it doesn't really matter - once the plants get thick and lush they will mostly hide it.

I have to split that hose in two at one point and put an on/off valve in it. In this flower bed, the stuff from the azaleas forward will get rain when it does rain. But I plan to plant things behind the azaleas, and those things will be completely under the awning, and never get any rain. So they will need watered more often, even if we're getting good rain they will need watered. But I can't just turn on the soaker hose and water the whole bed if there's been plenty of rain or I'll wash out the front. So I'm going to divide the hose and put an on/off valve in at the awning line. Then I can shut off the bottom half of the hose and only water the back of the bed when necessary, or open the valve and water the whole bed if we haven't had enough rain.

My other project is a little more involved. I want two more rain barrels for the other area. I had one last year, and we used it, but it would get used up too fast - one good deep watering of that flower bed and it would be empty. Then if it didn't rain for awhile, it wasn't getting refilled. Of course, it was taking so much water because that planting bed is entirely under the awning, so got no rain at all, and needed more frequent deep watering. I'm thinking about doing away with that this year, but more on that in a minute.

But the rain barrel did work so well that during even one good rain it would fill up completely, long before it stopped raining, letting the rest of the precious rainwater go down the drain - so I knew that adding two more, they would also be easily filled during any good rains, giving me 3 times as much backup water before worrying about it raining again.

But I've been to the place where we got this one several times, and they are out of these barrels, and don't know when they'll get them in. I'd like two of these because they're only $15 a piece (whereas I paid about $100 for the 'fancy' one).

One big thing I accomplished yesterday was removing a shrub that was right in front of last year's rain barrel. It was really seriously in the way for adding any more rain barrels over there, but I had balked about taking it out last year because I thought I was going to have to kill it - that's how I had to get the others out that I removed, cutting off all their branches first to leave just the stump, then digging and dragging that out of the ground. I really hated to kill any more shrubs. In a brief burst of energy yesterday, I tackled that shrub, and managed to dig it out. So I moved it around to the side of the house. Greg had to help me replant it, as I couldn't get the hole dug out quite deep enough. But that's a huge relief, not having that shrub in the way. Later this spring I'll remove the other one, and that whole area will finally be ready to finish.


The plans for that corner are to add two more rain barrels, but there's some work that needs done there first. We get a lot of rain overrunning from the roof in that corner, and I want to grade that corner better, piling up dirt higher against the foundation and sloping it away from the house. Once I do that, I have to figure out a way to get three rain barrels into that corner, level ... some kind of little leveled platforms stuck into the grade mound, I'm thinking. Those 3 barrels are going to take up a huge portion of that corner, and with the difficulty keeping that area watered since it's under the awning, I'm thinking about not trying to turn this into such a flower bed after all, and use it as more of a utility area. I already have a few things planted there from last year (some of which are starting to come up) - a fern, a bleeding heart, and a couple hostas - which I may be moving them somewhere else.

Anyway - it was good to be out in the gardens yesterday. I'm extremely bummed that after today the temperature's supposed to drop again for some time. I'm really ready for it to get warm and stay warm.

Sigh.

There's no good segue from that last post, but I guess I have to do something, to keep posting here.

It's been rough. I've been mostly keeping it to myself, outwardly managing what appears to be a normal existence. Mostly I've been doing a whole lot of distracting myself. But more on that another time.

Today is supposed to be the warmest day of the year so far, in the high 70s. I'm waiting for it, as it was cold when I woke up, and I've been chilled ever since. We're supposed to clean out the garage today. Yay. But it needs done.

Well, that's enough for now.

R.I.P. Tyler

Tyler

11.20.94 ~ 3.27.11

The best dog in the world, paws down. And most
people who knew you already agree.

Tyler, you took a large piece of my soul
with you today, but that's okay -
it's yours, you can keep it.

Tyler Update

Well, things are progressing steadily to shit.

Two weeks ago Tyler was supposed to have surgery, but the surgeon, after examining him, called me and said he didn't think it was a productive idea, so I picked Tyler up and took him home. The surgeon, however, said he'd consult with an oncologist and let me know if there was anything else that might help.

He didn't get back to me until last Thursday. Then he sounded encouraged, as he said the oncologist had reported to him that surgery often does help in this type of cancer (they're assuming it's a salivary gland cancer, due to it's location and symptoms, though the biopsy itself was inconclusive as to the specific type). So the surgeon decided that surgery was back on the menu for possible treatments. He wasn't available last Friday, so it was scheduled for this Friday.

But in the meantime, the lump had changed - it had gotten bigger, and kind of weirder - I didn't know how else to explain that, but it'll make sense in a minute.

The vet who first diagnosed him with cancer, "Dr. Brenda", wasn't the one who was going to do the surgery. But she was much easier to talk to (the surgeon often confused me, as he had a weird habit of talking in circles, saying contradictory things, and not making any sense to me). So I had decided that before the surgery, I wanted another appointment with Dr. Brenda to get some questions answered (with a straight answer rather than a circular one) and make the best decision.

That appointment was tonight. She examined Tyler with grim results. The tumor had not only grown, but it had "solidified" - what I had called "gotten weirder" - the way she explained it was, before, it was kind of wobbly and not that firmly attached to anything - implying what she thought was a reasonably decent chance of removing most of it. But now it's much more solid - it's just a big solid mass in his neck now, as opposed to a wobbly marble-shaped thing like it was a few weeks ago - which indicates to her that it's more entrenched into the deep soft tissue of the neck, embedded around the jugular and other veins and nerves in that area - which made the likelihood of successfully removing any significant portion of it much smaller. Also, with that enlarged lymph node in Tyler's shoulder, that meant it had spread. And, with all of this happening in the time frame it did, it indicated the cancer had gotten extremely aggressive.

All of this led Dr. Brenda to believe - when I pushed her for a blunt assessment - that surgery really wouldn't accomplish anything. It might buy at most a few weeks, but Tyler would be at great risk in this surgery, and I knew from personal experience that he'd probably have a very rough recovery. (Even though his eye surgery went extremely well from a medical standpoint, he did have a tough and disorienting recovery from that).

To buy a few weeks, but have Tyler suffering, it wasn't worth it. Right now he still feels good. Just last Sunday when I had him outside, he was running through the yard. Not fast, but running. He felt so good we went for a walk down the block, and he really enjoyed it - trotting, taking side trips to check out interesting scents ... he had a really good day.

I wasn't much surprised by Dr. Brenda's assessment, as I'd already kind of had a gut feeling that this surgery wasn't a good idea and wasn't going to happen. I was tempted to bitch that if the surgeon had done the surgery two weeks ago, things would be different, but I have the deep feeling that's not true. Things had already begun progressing (there was that should lymph node thing even then), and the surgeon had told me even then that he didn't believe he could remove it all. If it was being this aggressive, then taking out only a portion of it wouldn't have really solved anything, but would have made Tyler miserable, subjecting him to the dangers of surgery and a difficult recovery to buy - what - maybe a couple of weeks? Not worth it. Like I said, he's been feeling good the last two weeks. He wouldn't have had that if he'd had the surgery.

So I think that really, not doing the surgery is the best thing for him, ultimately. It was no cure, but just something to buy time ... but at the cost, not time of any value for him.

Then I pressed Dr. Brenda for a time frame, how this is going to progress and what I can expect - and she told me the bad news. She said we're looking at probably a few weeks to a month or so. That's it.

I held up really well until she said "Now is the time to just spoil him, feed him whatever he wants, and just love on him." Well, I can do that.

She did give me a prescription for a medication (I have to get at a regular pharmacy) which is a high-dosage aggressive treatment drug - it won't cure him, but it will help keep things comfortable for as long as possible. (That's what gets us maybe a month instead of, like, 2 weeks - I'll take it as long as he's feeling okay).

So, that's where things are. I'm pretty heartbroken, but at the moment I'm relatively calm. (well ... relatively ... ). I'm sure I'll be a wreck later, but for now, I have a direction and a goal - spoil the hell out of Tyler. So that's what I'm doing. A plan, any plan, does help.

No Good News

Originally the vet that examined Tyler suggested we start with surgery to remove the tumor - she believed it could potentially all be removed, and that it would give him immediate relief as far as the difficulty in swallowing. Then we'd see about chemo or radiation. That surgery was scheduled for yesterday.

But yesterday, about half an hour after I dropped him off, the surgeon called. He had not previously examined Tyler, and when he did, he said it was his belief the tumor went much deeper than originally thought, that it was probably well into the deep tissue around Tyler's esophagus, and that he would not be able to remove anywhere near all of it. He would not be able to remove the part that was causing difficulty swallowing, so that problem would remain. Also, he found a lymph node near Tyler's shoulder that was enlarged, and if the cancer had moved into the lymph nodes, it made surgery that much less likely to really do any good.

For those reasons, he didn't recommend subjecting Tyler to the difficulty and risk of the surgery, so we didn't proceed with that.

After spending several long minutes telling me how these things usually don't have any good outcome, how often when treatment is pursued it just makes things worse, the surgeon then kind of turned the conversation a bit sideways and said that he'd consult with another oncologist and let me know whether they thought this would respond, even just on a short term basis, to any chemo or radiation. His take seemed to be that it would not, so I'm unsure why he basically volunteered that route at all, but ... since it's not changing, hurting, or delaying anything good, I'm willing to at least ask. I mean, the alternative is to do nothing, which is what we're doing while we wait anyway, so it doesn't change anything.

Unfortunately, I do not believe this is going to have any good outcome. I don't think, from what they're telling me, that any chemo or radiation is really going to help. I never intended to put Tyler through any procedures that would be uncomfortable or make him sick or miserable, only to maybe add a few weeks to his life. I'm not of the mind set to "drag this on at all costs." I would be, as I desperately don't want to let him go - but for the fact that I don't want him to be sick and miserable and uncomfortable. I can't do that to him.

He had to come off his prednisone a couple days before the surgery, and I saw how miserable he was - weak, shaking, not eating. I told them yesterday, if I'm going to bring him home to wait to hear from this oncologist, he has to have something to make him feel better. They've put him on a pain medication which did help a lot. He was more like his old self last night, following us around, interested in what was going on around him, and he ate well.

I know that status quo won't maintain for long, but I have no idea how long. I haven't talked to them yet about whether they have any idea how this is going to develop, but it does seem things are moving much more quickly than they were ... I mean, if this started way last summer and took this long to even develop enough to be noticeable, but then in just two weeks he went from no lump, to a big lump, that has grown even more in two weeks, and then lymph nodes showing up involved - it sounds like it's not taking it's time anymore.

It's just a crazy-making kind of situation at this point. It really, really, really sucks.

Tyler

It's a sad weekend around here. Got some bad news about Tyler. He has cancer. Well, here's the story and what's next.

You may recall that late last summer he was having problems swallowing, and was choking when he ate or drank water. One vet told me it was nothing serious, and to just raise his food and water dishes - which initially helped, so I thought he'd be fine. The problem returned around the same time his eye problem ramped up, but I was so much more focused on that, that I didn't pay much attention to the swallowing problem.

After he'd recovered from his eye surgery, I took him to another vet, which I'd actually planned several months before - a holistic vet in Beaver, PA, who I hoped to get better advice from for taking good care of him in these late years, making sure his home-cooked diet was up to par, etc.

Well, this moron took one look at Tyler's age and said there was nothing he could do for him. He told me his heart murmur was so bad that he'd probably be in heart failure by the end of the year, and he basically wrote him off.

I was sad, but didn't know what to do, so I took Tyler home and didn't initially do anything.

Because of what I learned after the fact is why I say the guy was a moron who ripped me off. He was wrong about there being nothing to do, and wrong about Tyler's heart murmur. But don't get me started on that asshole.

From October until the end of December, Tyler had more and more problems eating, and ate less and less, until he'd lost so much weight he was literally just skin and bones. I finally said, screw this "nothing can be done" - at this rate he's going to starve to death. So I took him to another local vet who many people I know speak very highly of.

So the new vet said "Well, we could certainly at least take an x-ray and see if we can see what's going on in there." I kind of kicked myself for not trying that sooner, rather than listening to that moron, holistic vet, but again ... I don't know, when a vet - a specialist that you pay a lot of money to go see tells you something, I guess it's understandable to believe it.

So anyway, the new vet took an x-ray and said she didn't see anything wrong. She suggested it might be some type of auto-immune problem, and said we could try a round of prednisone. I agreed - I'd try anything at that point. We also supplemented his food with some canned high-calorie prescription food to help him gain weight. I started feeding him 3 or 4 times a day. And his 'regular food,' I started chopping up real fine in a food processor and coating with melted butter - in part to make it easier to swallow, and in part to help him gain some weight.

I also started sitting on the floor with him, and holding his food bowl up in front of his face at a steep angle, so that he barely had to move his head from a 'normal' position to eat. This helped two ways - he choked a lot less with his bowl held like that, and I could encourage him to keep eating when he tried to stop. It worked really well, and he quickly began gaining weight. By the end of a couple weeks, I was able to go back to putting his food bowl in his feeder (raised, and propped at an angle on a blanket) and he'd eat on his own. His appetite was great then, and he'd eagerly eat 3 or 4 meals a day, with no problem. He also almost completely stopped choking at all, whether when he ate or drank water.

It was almost like he was cured, he was really on the mend, and I was relieved. I realized that was the best he'd been since last summer before his eye problem went all pear-shaped, and thought we'd finally made it out of the woods and got a break.

Tuesday when I came home from work he had a big swelling or lump under the left side of his jaw. Initially I didn't think much about it, just thought he had an infection or something. Took him back to the vet Wednesday, she was concerned, did a biopsy, and - it's cancer.

It's been an emotional weekend, but here's where I'm at for the moment (which is subject to change). I had several long talks with the vet about this. I told her I want to aggressively treat it to the point that it has any hope of serving any purpose ... but I don't want to subject Tyler to any treatment that's going to make him miserable and sick, to maybe effect no change at all, or something that will only last a couple weeks.

She was totally cool about it, very understanding. She completely supported my position (none of that "he's old, just forget about it" BS I've gotten from other vets). When I explained that I understand that when a dog's 16 years old, any talk of "long term prognosis" is kind of pointless, she put it this way. What's the life expectancy of a 16 year old dog with no major health problems? Maybe a year or so (average; of course some dogs live longer, but most don't make it to 16, so it was a bit of a generalization, but I get the point). What's the prognosis of a 16 year old dog with cancer who undergoes viable treatment? Maybe a year. But without treatment? Far, far less.

So it seemed reasonable to me - and the vet agreed - to pursue some early treatment now. She did explain, and I understand, that this is no 'cure' - it's to buy time, that's it. But I'll take that - as long as he's comfortable and it's not making him feel worse.

So the first course of action is surgery (next Friday) to remove this big lump in his neck. That will create some immediate relief and get rid of that mess, anyway. But she assured me I can assume that's not "all there is" and that something will turn up somewhere else, in time.

The second step is to treat him with drug therapy. She is unfamiliar with this particular type of cancer (it's kind of uncommon, though not rare) - but that didn't bother me because she was open enough to admit that, and told me over the next few days she'd be researching it to see whether it responds to chemotherapy, or what kind of drug protocol it might respond to. She also told me she'd be consulting with all the vets in the office, the newer vets with the 'fresh out of medical school' latest information, and the older, "experience from the trenches" vets who may have dealt with this type of thing many times before. I thought that was pretty damned cool, that they're willing to put their heads together and come up with the best treatment course for Tyler.

If there's a chemo protocol, they'll try it. She told me chemo is different in animals - it doesn't make them sick or weak or cause their hair to fall out. Basically there are no real side effects from it. This is because in animals, they don't give chemo 'full bore' - in mega high doses like they do in people. She didn't go into details, and I didn't care, but I suspect this has to do with the way dogs age and metabolize - everything is 'sped up' in dogs, like how you've always heard that every year of a dog's life is like 7 in humans, so a 10 year old dog is like 70. That's not quite accurate, as they've adjusted those scales somewhat, but you get the gist.

Anyway - if there is no chemo protocol, there's another drug she wants to try. I believe it's called Rimadyl - it's a human arthritis drug that she said has shown amazing abilities to shrink and even kill cancer tumors in dogs.

So ... that's the plan for now. Surgery to remove the worst of the mess physically, then drug therapy to hope to contain it for awhile ... to buy some time (hopefully quality time) ... and just take it one day at a time.

I'm very, very sad, but there's one thing that makes this somewhat bearable. With Tyler being 16, of course I've known for awhile it was 'only a matter of time.' And as she pointed out, even without this happening, his life expectancy might have not been much more than a year or so. If I can get through the summer, then ... I guess how I want to say this is, we may not have lost much from him getting cancer, it may be that what time we get would have been about all we had anyway. So ... that does help it not seem quite so devastating.

But the hard part is knowing. When nothing specific was wrong, though I knew he was old, I could kind of ignore it and just not think about it. Now, with this diagnosis, it's like a ticking time bomb I can hear all the time.

For his part, Tyler seems to be doing okay. He's still eating well, still not choking on his food, has a decent amount of energy - once in awhile when we're outside, he even gives a little hop and takes off running. He did that to me the other day and I wasn't expecting it, and he was headed straight for a tree - I had to rein him in just to keep him from running into the tree. ;o) So ... that kind of thing is what makes me want to keep on keeping on, at least for awhile.

I'd at least like to get well into summer - Tyler likes being outside and going for walks, and it's been a miserable winter with it being so cold and snowy, and him cooped up inside and not getting to do anything fun at all. If we can get into summer, he can enjoy being outside and going for walks again. I'd like to see that.

And on that note, I guess I'll keep you posted.

I Have Molding!

My new scheme is working ... the dining room molding is finally done!!



(The last wall wasn't finished yet when I took this picture, but it is now - it's all up!)


Well, mostly done. I'm marking it 98% in my little status section in the side-bar, because technically I have a couple things to do - go around and dab paint over the nails, and patch the few little gaps with spackling and paint that. But it's going to be simple, and basically it's all up, so ... I have molding.

I cannot get over how awesome this looks. Better even than I expected. I'm incredibly impressed with it. The center squares weren't just an artsy touch - they were also practical.


I can't remember the details now (it's been so long since we first got the stuff to do this), but there was some issue with the length of the stock molding, and of the walls, that was creating some problem I didn't like ... but we discovered that using these squares, we could cut the stock molding exactly in half (which we did at the store), and that combined with the squares was the exact right length (with a little 1/4" trimming here or there) without having to piece the molding mid-wall.

But practical or not, I love the way they look. I intended to paint decorative compass roses on each one, but never got around to it when I decided the molding was going up today, or I was going to die attempting it. I figured I can do it later ... it'll be harder painting them on the wall, but not impossible. Hey ... if Michaelangelo could paint a ceiling ... .

The little corner pieces are a little funkier, not exactly how I envisioned things (also chosen so we didn't have to try to miter corners). You can't really see them well in the other pictures, but they are just decorative corner pieces with a fancy bit at the top (which is the little bit we left sticking up above the molding).


It seemed better in theory than in practice - as you can tell by this picture, they don't look so bad close up, but from the general view out in the room, they just kind of get lost and look a little weird. Probably they would have needed to be bigger to have looked proper.

But that's okay, I came up with a grand plan for them as well. Now that I'm getting into clay sculpture, I'm going to (eventually) sculpt ship figureheads for each corner - small, scaled to fit appropriately in that space - and cover those corner pieces with them. It'll look cool, and go perfectly with the 'seaside cottage' theme we're working on here.

The scheme that got me to this point was a rearrangement of the use of my time. Usually on Saturdays I sleep in (even if it's only 8:30 or 9:00, I don't set an alarm), then I sit around for several hours doing nothing (i.e., messing around online and drinking coffee), then I go to the grocery store, and usually run some errands, and by the time I get home for the day it's 2:00 or later and I'm tired, and band practice is in a few hours, and I don't feel like starting on a home project.

And rightly so, as this took far longer than I thought it would. About 4 hours. But consequently, nothing ever gets done.

I was sick to death of stuff not getting done, and devised a new plan. Now I get up really early Saturday morning - 6:00 a.m., the same time I get up during the week - and I get my ass out to the grocery store early (this morning, by 8:00). Then I'm home early enough to still have time to tackle my home improvement projects.

This is the only way I'll ever get anything done, because Saturday is the only day I have for these types of projects - I refuse to do this stuff on Sunday, Sunday is my R&R and "me" day - for sewing, clay, whatever fun and creative project I want to work on. It could be argued that doing this stuff is fun and creative too, but ... for some reason, despite how much I want to do these things, how much I enjoy fixing up the house, I still consider them 'work.' So, they don't fall into the proper category for Sunday. Sunday is a 'no work' day, just because everyone needs one of those a week.

But Saturday is also the only day I care to go to the grocery store, as I detest going on weeknights after work.

So ... starting my day earlier is the only way to fit them both in, but it worked like a charm this week. If I can keep this up, I should start making progress on more projects. I don't really mind the sacrifice of another couple hours of sleep or "sitting around" time because it came down to a matter of choices ... if I want to get these things done, I have to make them a priority, make time to do them, and just do it. If I want to sleep in and sit around for hours on Saturday morning, then ... nothing's going to get done. Can't have it both ways. So it's a worthwhile trade-off.

Next phase on the dining room: paint the dark wood paneling in the doorway to the kitchen and the 'tween' (that window between the kitchen and dining room) and replace the edge molding on those. And paint the ceiling. Then - or concurrently - I'll work on that stupid window between the dining room and the spare room, and put up the coat hook rack on the wall by the door.

This Bodes Well.

I got the book yesterday - it's awesome! So today I - of course - spent much of the day beginning the learning of the techniques.

One really cool thing about the book is that the author shows you how to make almost all the tools you need, and it's super on the cheap. It's nice that you don't even have to invest a lot of money in specialty tools. I, however, was too impatient to do all that first (I will, soon - I want to give myself the best chance of success by having proper tools - but just not today) so I immediately started work on my first face, since that's what I was most dying to try. One of the main tools used in this method is - ta da! - knitting needles, and I had plenty of those (to spare) so I had the main tool I needed anyway.

I am amazed at how wonderfully well a knitting needle works for clay sculpting. And really cool - I had one of those sets of interchangeable needles, with the tips in sizes from like 3 to 13, and then cables. Well, it was an early knitting career purchase, and the only set I could afford, so it mostly really sucks. The cables are horribly stiff and won't stay screwed into the tips. I hate it but never really wanted to just get rid of it. Well, those knitting needle tips work extraordinarily well for this because they're already short and easy to handle.

Well, after 5 or 6 hours (with a break for pancakes and sausage), I ended up with something I'm fairly well pleased with.




Yes, it needs some smoothing, and the head's misshapen, his eyes are crooked, I wrecked his chin and forgot to fix it, but ... I'm pretty happy with this for a first-ever attempt. This tells me that with time, patience, and practice, I can do exactly what I plan - get really good at this and make awesome sculptures! I'm pleased.

He wasn't supposed to be a chubby guy, but that happened because I misjudged the initial set-up of the face, and got some proportions wrong, like the chin and jaw area being way too huge. So - voila, chubby guy. :o)

And it's amazing fun! This was an absolute blast. Okay, there were a few times when it got frustrating, but I just reminded myself - this is supposed to be FUN, dammit! - no, really, I reminded myself that I'm brand new at this and learning, so of course there's going to be a learning curve, of course it's going to take awhile to get comfortable with the techniques. But I learned so much just doing this ... every main part of the face I had to do over multiple times, and each time I learned what doesn't work, and eventually began learning what does. I'm sure the next one will go even easier, and soon the quality will improve.

Next phase - on to the body parts! I suppose I'll keep Harry (as he's told me he's named - okay, he really began to develop a personality when he got eyes, what can I say) and just add a body to him, to practice that bit as well. There is probably going to be a whole village of strange, misshapen clay people living in the Imaginarium as I build 'practice people'.

Too awesome. :o)

I've Been Busy!

A very good kind of busy, though - lots of stuff going on!

First, (drumroll please) ... I finished the sweater back! Yeah, that's astounding enough, but what's more amazing is, the gauge is dead on. I almost fell over.

Here's a picture a day or two before I officially finished it. It doesn't show the pattern really well, but you'll get the gist.


I've started on the first front piece, and have some delusional hope I might actually get to wear it this spring. And that it might fit.

I'm almost done with the Valentine's themed table mat.


The only thing that still needs done is the backing folded over and sewn to make the binding. There's a specific trick to miter the corners and I can't remember how to do it, and don't know exactly where my quilting basics book is, where the technique is explained. I'll find it, or look it up online. It's a pretty standard technique.

I've also made four blocks of the scrap quilt.


I'm really happy with how these are turning out. One of them has a kind of screwy color combination, but I made up my mind when I started this that I wasn't going to fuss with matching colors in the blocks. For one thing, it's a scrap quilt - that isn't necessary. That's one of the points of making a scrap quilt, not have to fuss with a lot of planning. It's supposed to be relaxing and laid back. I also know that even if I throw together a few ugly combinations, when the whole quilt is put together, it won't really be noticeable.

One of the reasons there isn't a lot of color variety here is that so far I don't have a lot of fabrics to work with. I started with just my stash, which was oddly sparse and monochrome. I know I had several huge boxes of fabric scraps when we moved, already trimmed into 5" squares in anticipation of just this type of quilt, but they're MIA at the moment. Maybe permanently, as I've been through pretty much everything here since we moved, and I've never seen them.

Then I went and bought a bunch of fat quarters (pieces of fabric that are 18" by ... I forget, but they're basically a quarter yard of fabric pre-cut) for the quilt, but in an effort to not go on a huge spending spree, I only bought some of what I'd need ... so, the color selection is still somewhat limited so far. The next time I go fabric shopping I'll pick up the rest, and make sure I mix in some more varied colors, then things should start popping.

Last but not least, I made a bead tonight.


It sounds like a big deal - I made A BEAD! But I actually planned this bead specifically for a necklace I've wanted to make for a couple months, so that's why it's getting the solo treatment. I like the way it turned out. Hopefully this weekend I'll be putting the piece together, and will have a finished picture. (with no reference, it's hard to tell, but it's not that huge - it's about 1" across; I just made it really close-up so you could see the detail).

I'm beyond ecstatic about clay now. It's so freaking fun!! I ordered a book I can't wait to get (it should be here tomorrow!) - it's how to make clay figures, from a woman who is flaming stellar at it. Well, don't take my word for it - her name is Katherine Dewey, and you can see her work here.

It might take years to get as good as that, but I have no doubt I could do it, if I put my mind to it and practice a lot. And that's what I want to do. I enjoy all the rest of this stuff, but this idea I have for clay - I'm just kind of consumed by it. I have a very specific first project planned, but I think I'll keep it a secret so you can be surprised when I post a picture of it (which may be a year from now, but ... baby steps. I am just learning).

This is all heading in the direction of opening the Etsy shop later this year. I know exactly what I want to sell. But I have some steps to get through before I'm ready for that. First, learn and practice and get good. Second, make some inventory. Then the shop.

I'm pretty psyched. This is probably the best mood I've been in for many, many years. All this making of stuff going on! All this creativity in the air! I've even forgotten to get S.A.D. this year, that's how amazing this is.

Well, That Sucks

I was just checking it this morning to see how it set up, and this happened. I put very little pressure or stress on it to cause this, which tells me it would have never survived as a piece of jewelry anyway.

I'm not sure why this happened. I tried checking online, but couldn't really find much. It may be that pieces as thin as those petals are just too fragile to stand alone. I have read that very thin pieces remain fragile after baking, unless they're supported by some type of internal framework. I suppose if you were attaching them to something else that would support them, it would also get around that problem.

I'll have to experiment some more. But it's kind of a bummer, because I was interested in making jewelry pieces with very thin parts like that - I had another idea in the works for a steampunk butterfly. I can still do these types of things, will just have to either make the thin parts thicker (which takes away from the delicacy I was going for), or attach them to some type of background.

Oh well. Back to the drawing board. My next experiment is trying out an enameling technique, and a few other holiday ideas.

More Creativity and Homeowner Adventures

Today was cool. First, I bought a couple of the best tools I've ever owned.


I'm working on this quilted table mat thing for Valentine's Day, and decided to do stipple quilting in part of it. I absolutely adore stipple quilting, it's one of my favorite things about quilts ... but it takes some skill and practice to do. It involves quilting random squiggly patterns over an area, moving the quilt around free-hand. (You can see it a little bit in the pink-fabric parts of the mat in the picture). To do that you have to lower (or cover) the feed dogs so they are not guiding the material, and you can't use a regular presser foot, which creates too much drag on the fabric for the 'free' part of 'free motion.'

I tried doing it with no presser foot at all - it's possible, but very tricky. So today I went down to the sewing shop where I got my machine to see if they had a darning foot in stock. And they did, and it wasn't even expensive! A darning foot is ideal for free-motion quilting because it has a spring and bounces up and down with the needle, giving you tension when you need it (as the stitch is being made), then lifting up to allow you to freely move the quilt - all in the space of split seconds as you sew. It makes free-motion quilting so much easier. I still need some practice to make it prettier, but it's going pretty darn well for just learning.

The second, cheaper, and more surprising thing was the gloves. I'd heard of these, but always thought it was silly. Well, for the record, it is not. These gloves have little tiny rubber grippy dots all over the palms to help grip the fabric, making it far, far easier to move around. It's astoundingly easier, let me tell you. The difference was amazing.

Meanwhile, I am in the process of setting up a dedicated 'clay station,' and this is another wonderful thing.



I'm using my dad's desk which was already up in the Imaginarium. I happened to have a very large piece of relatively heavy glass sitting up there; I'm not sure where it came from, but I think - oh yes, I remember - it was a large cross-stitch picture I'd done for someone one time that I ended up getting back, and when I rented the dumpster awhile back I threw away the cross-stitch picture (long story, but it needed it, trust me) but salvaging the glass, thinking 'that might come in handy for something.' Well, it did - it makes a perfect work surface for clay. I've got a temporary piece of flannel under it to protect the desk, but it's working out pretty well, as it gives me a soft surface to lay things on to the side.

This is working out so great! I have it off my main work table, so I can sew without worrying about dragging fabric through clay projects in process. This is a perfect size for working with the clay, as I don't need a huge amount of room. It's just all around a great set-up. I can use the drawers for supplies. Just awesome.

So to celebrate, I made this.



I think it's going to be come a necklace, although I haven't worked out the details yet. I'm discovering that apparently my creation method of choice is "by the seat of my pants" - I don't know exactly what I'm going to make when I sit down to make something, I just start experimenting.

So I did a little quilting today, did a little clay, and in a few minutes it's band practice. All in all a pretty awesome day.

In the 'homeowner angst' department, I am pretty sure the reason the dining room is so cold is because there's enough of a gap at the edge of the front door for a nice icy breeze to actually blow through ... enough to create a large wedge of frost on the latch plate.





I went to Home Despot today and picked up some weatherstripping, but unfortunately it can't be installed until it's over 40 degrees. Well, that's no damned help now, but eventually I'll get it fixed. Fortunately the stuff only cost about $5, so no great waste if I happen to get a new door before I get it installed (unlikely, but possible). We could always use it on the door into the garage, which I haven't checked, but probably has the same problem.

Slowly, we'll seal up the little leaks around here and get this place warmed up. Most of the house is fine, there's just this dining room and kitchen that get so cold - the dining room because of the door and the fact that there's only crawl space under it, and the kitchen because of the garage door and the fact that what's under it is the unheated workshop. There are things to do about all of that, just ... haven't gotten around to it yet.

Off to feed the Poo and then band practice.

Adventures Of Homeownership, Chapter 23; and Creativity Ensues!

So Greg was away on a winter camping trip with his son and Boy Scouts this weekend, and on Saturday night I was downstairs watching a movie. During a commercial I went to the loo, and on my way there stepped in something wet. Thinking Tyler had peed on the floor again (becoming a habit with him, unfortunately), I turned on some lights to clean it up - and discovered it wasn't Tyler's mess. The main water line had a leak - before the shut-off valve. About 2" above the point where the pipe comes into the house through the basement floor, in fact.

Lovely. It wasn't a gushing leak, it was a drip, but a very steady drip - like one drip every second. Though there is some type of linoleum flooring directly around this pipe, only a few inches away a section of carpet starts and it had puddled and run and soaked the carpet.

Fortunately, it was pretty easily fixed. It was covered under the home warranty which came with the house when we bought it, and which we decided to renew last year (and will probably again this year, as it's turning out to be pretty darned useful).

The worst part about the water leak was that since it was before the shut-off valve, I had to have the city come out and shut the water off at the street, on a Sunday, in about 18 degree whether - they weren't terribly happy - and they couldn't find it. They scurried around out there for more than half an hour with their metal detector, digging up chunks of my treelawn. As one of the water guys put it himself, it looks like we've had an invasion of groundhogs.

Nice of him to find the humor in it, but when the snow melts, this is going to be a mess. Well, it's already kind of a mess, but ... .

Anyway, that's a concern for another time ... when there's a thaw, like in 6 months from now.

But because things going smoothly and easily isn't part of the Homeowner's Manifesto, last night our stove quit working. Just ... quit. Nothing would heat up, digital display will only come on when a burner is turned on (though the burner won't work). Very weird.

Fortunately, that's covered under the homeowner's warranty, too, so ... another service call put in last night, we'll see what happens with that. I kind of hope it isn't fixable, because I hate that stove, and the warranty includes replacement of the appliance if it isn't fixable. I can go back to the awesome ceran top stove like I had at the old house, and left (because I was just sick of moving and it was too much trouble). I'm sure I'll have to pay something myself if I upgrade, they probably only pay an amount that would purchase a model like the one we killed, which is probably about $400 or $500 - and a ceran top model undoubtedly costs several hundred more. I haven't priced them since I bought the last one in 1994.

Anyway - every time some inconvenience or work drama surfaces anymore, I distract myself (and cheer myself up) by thinking of all the things I'm making right now. Creativity has definitely moved in and set up housekeeping. For a quick something as a mini fix, I'm making a quilted table mat for the dining room. During the holidays I had a Christmas placemat on the table with a little arrangement of candles, but when we took down the holiday decorations, the table seemed so bare. I thought I'd make something to lay on the table, then put some candles on, and since Valentine's Day is the next holiday, it's themed that way. More on that when it's done in a few days.

I'm still slogging away on the sweater, and it's coming along. Gauge is still on track! Amazing. And I'm nearing the end of the back piece. Probably won't be done by spring, when it would have been useful, though. But we'll see.

I'm also working on a scrap quilt, which kind of came about by accident.

I've been wanting to make a mariner's compass quilt for a long time, and I saw one in a magazine I mostly fell in love with - it's called Spice Island, and the fabrics are all batiks in shades named things like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, etc. - looking appropriately spicy, as you'd expect. Here's a picture of it.


I love the colors of that quilt, but the one thing I don't care for is all the individual blocks with mariner's compasses in them. What I'd really like is a quilt with a big giant mariner's compass in the center, then other decorative things around the outside. I believe those are called medallion quilts.

But I can't find a pattern for one like that anywhere. Every one I can find always contains a bunch of smaller compasses. I've seen one or two that had a compass in the center, but they were quite small usually. I think there's a logical reason for that ... mariner's compasses are a challenging version of quilt-making, and the larger they are, the harder they are to make, so I think it's much easier to make them the size in this quilt.

But I get stubborn when I get an idea, and the only way I've been able to figure out I could make the one I envision is to learn how to draft compass patterns myself, so I can make it any size I want. To do that, I need some good instructions, and people seem to be sort of secretive about this art ... I haven't been able to find any free instructions online, although there are a couple of books that apparently have good directions. My local library doesn't carry them, so I'm thinking about trying interlibrary loan. I very well may end up buying the book(s) but I'd like to check them out first and make sure it's what I want.

Meanwhile, I also love the fabrics this quilt is made out of, but they are batiks, which are expensive. I can't imagine being able to afford all the suggested fabrics for this quilt any time soon, so I had another idea. I could use muslin (which I've taken to buying by the bolt at Joanne's when it's on sale or I have a coupon, and which I think is a wonderful thing), and then hand dying the muslin in the yardages and approximate shades for this quilt - not using the batik method probably, as it's complex and I don't know how to do it, but maybe using some natural dying techniques which give nice subtle colors. Of course, I don't know how to do that either, but I have a feeling that will be easier and quicker to learn than batik, an art form unto itself. (though I may need to try that some day ... ).

See why I can't get anything done? Everything mushrooms. I go from wanting to simply make a quilt I saw in a magazine, to re-drafting the pattern and re-designing the quilt and hand-dying all the fabric for it before I can start on it.

Anyway - I desperately was in the mood to make a quilt, and knew it'd be awhile before I could start on the mariner's compass, so I started a scrap quilt instead. That's the one I'm working on now.

I've cleaned up the Imaginarium a lot lately, it's really coming along. I'll have to get some pictures posted soon. So my next step is to finish fixing up the 'clay station,' an area I made just for working on clay, so I can go back to working with that. Sometime this summer I want to start an Etsy shop, but ... need some stuff made and ready to sell first.

And I have a jacket/dress thing in process, and a whole slew of mending, and Greg's pirate shirt to re-make (made him one for Christmas, but it was too short, so I'm going to take it apart and remake it longer), embroidery to do on the pirate shirt, clay to play with, and oh, I don't know, half a dozen or so other projects.

I figured out the reason I've been going slowly nuts for awhile now is I wasn't making anything. I am much happier now. :o)