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Now that the high school graduate has received his quilt, I am posting a couple of pictures of it. I have not yet heard how Tommy liked it, but I was very pleased with the end result. My friend Kathy, who quilted the top to the bottom on her long arm machine, did a fantastic job. It really finished the quilt off nicely and looks so professional. Hopefully Tommy will enjoy it for many years.

For the first time ever I kept track of all of my expenses and all of my time on a quilt. I knew it would be an interesting experience, but by the time it was all said and done, I earned $1.30 per hours for the quilt. Woo, hoo! Slightly more than I used to make baby-sitting back in the late '60's. Well, just like writing books, you do it because you love it not because you expect to get rich.

On to a different subject...My hair stylist is quite a character. He is going to Chicago this weekend for the International Mr. Leather competition. Charles is the reigning Mr. Midwest Leather, so he gets to compete again this year. The competition takes place at the Hyatt Regency downtown. Apparently they have all the rooms in the hotel reserved for attendees again this year. What I wouldn't give to be there. From what Charles had told me, just being in the lobby is quite the experience! The hotel staff told them they just love it when the competition is there because "you gay guys are great tippers".

Charles is taking the train to Chicago today since air prices are so high. However he will board the train at Union Station, not Kirkwood. "Did you know that the Kirkwood station is unmanned?", he asked me. I admitted that I did know this. "Well that means you can only check one 50 pound bag and have two carry ons!", he exclaimed. "They have obviously never traveled with a gay guy", he continued. "I couldn't fit all of my outfit changes into one bag. And it's all leather, for crying out loud. I would exceed the 50 pound weight limit!" Apparently if you go to Union Station you can check three bags and have two carry ons. Much more to Charles' needs.

So go get 'em Charles! Any guy that still looks good in leather at age 56 and can compete with the young'uns has my vote!

The quilt that my friend asked me to make for her son's graduation is now in the hands of the long arm of the quilting law - my friend Kathy. I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, but Kathy couldn't work on it until after May 5th when she finished a quilt for her nephew. After that she was not available until May 11th for me to drop it off, at which time she informed me that she will not touch it until Monday the 16th. This was very disappointing to me as Diane wanted the quilt by the 17th. After Kathy is done, I still need to sew on the binding, which is time consuming. While I machine-sew the binding to the top of the quilt, I then hand-sew the binding to the back. Obviously I will not make the deadline of the 17th. Diane is understanding, thankfully, but I definitely want to get it to her by the graduation date, which is the 20th.

It would have been fantastic to get the quilt back from Kathy by today as Jim is gone on a motorcycle training trip this weekend. I could have sewed to my heart's content, and made the deadline. Also, on Sunday afternoon we go to Chicago to pick up Katie and all her crap. We will not get back to St. Louis until late Monday night. So if I get the quilt from Kathy on Tuesday I will really have to hustle to get it completed. I may be calling my sister over to have her help me with the hand-sewing. She said she wouldn't mind, and she wants to see Katie sometime during the short four day time period she will be in St. Louis.

Next Saturday Katie flies to Prague for a five week marketing class with 13 other students and two professors from Columbia College. They will be working with a marketing company in Prague on the Oreo cookie campaign. Apparently Oreos are not big sellers in Czech Republic, and Nabisco wants to change that. What a fun account to work on!

So in the meantime, with nothing to sew, Kirby and I are holding down the fort. I guess I will go back to working on my e-book. Sew natural...

Around working on my dad's book and all the extra work on the pictures I had to do for it, I have been trying to keep up with this graduation quilt I am making. Now that it is April, I am beginning to feel the squeeze. The mom has not told me exactly what date she needs the quilt done, but I know graduation is May 20th. When I made Lauren's quilt (sister to this graduate), it just needed to be completed by Lauren's graduation party. This bought me a little extra time, which was great. Tommy knows he is getting this quilt, so it is not a surprise like Lauren's was so the deadline may not be that big of a deal. I guess I better ask the question, huh?

Originally I was going to make 70 squares, which is the number I used in Lauren's quilt. But since I cut each of the center fabric pieces larger for this quilt so you could really see some of the larger focal pieces, I realized that 70 would make this quilt huge. (Unfortunately this was after I had already cut all 70.) So I have scaled back the number to 48. I have all the squares pieced and am now just "squaring" them up. After that I'll be ready to start sewing the squares together. When that is complete, I'll decide if I'm going to put on one border or two, depending on the size I am aiming for in the end.

Last night I called my friend who actually did the finished quilting on Lauren's quilt to see if she is willing to do the same for this new one. She has one of the really expensive long arm quilting machines that can handle larger quilts. It just makes a much nicer finish than I can do on my machine. Thankfully, she has the time to take on this project after May 3rd. It will only take her a few days at most, and then the quilt comes back to me to apply the binding. Whew! Could be crunch time in early May, especially since we have to go to Chicago and move Katie home the middle of the month. Always something... No wonder I have been a quilting "b" lately.

That was an old adage my mom used to throw out when I was learning to sew. I've gotten a lot of mileage (or should I say yardage?) out of it over the years. Over the weekend I came up with a modification of mom's words of wisdom. Measure twice, buy once. I have been working on the graduation quilt I am making for my friend's son. She helped me pick out 26 of the fabrics initially, though I need 73 different fabrics all together. I finished shopping on my own. I have all 70 squares cut and sewn with their borders attached. The next step is a purple fabric for the sashings, which is what joins the squares together. Diane had helped me select this particular fabric, and it quickly became clear to me on Sunday that I was not going to have enough to do all the squares. Crap!

Knowing that Jackman's was having a Super Bowl sale, I rushed up there hoping to be able to buy 3 more yards of the fabric. They only had 2 yards left. Double crap! I made an executive decision to change to a different purple, one that has a suggestion of tie-dye effect to it. I think it will mesh nicely with the 70 different novelty prints in the quilt, and it blends with the purple border already around each square. (Purple is the graduate's favorite color, in case you couldn't tell.) Now I get to cut 280 strips 9" x 2". Yippee! My least favorite part of quilting is all the cutting. My wrist hurts thinking about it. Maybe if I had a decent layout table it would help. Instead I am either hunched over on the floor cutting, or bending over a table that is too short.

Maybe my retirement home will have the perfect craft room???

I'm writing this as I wait for the timer to go off, telling me it is time to rinse the dye out of my hair. I'm going back to an old color I had used for years, Light Ash Brown, after a couple years of combining two colors together. The combination had worked well for a long time, but now I think the color ends up being too light. I don't know if Clairol changed the formulas or if my hair has just decided to do its own thing with the color. Hopefully I will like the end result. I leave next Sunday for my trip to Publishing University in New York, and I want to look good when I meet Barbra Streisand. Ha!

I've been working on the wall quilt for the remodeled bathroom this weekend. Today I will do the actual quilting, then all that will be left is attaching the binding. I was really hoping to do some planting yesterday or today, but this weather does not put me in the mood for either buying plants or getting them in the ground. We are now just four weeks from the house/garden tour, and I am beginning to fret about whether the yard will be ready in time. It looks good, but I have seen a couple of the other gardens on the tour and they are GREAT. We need to step it up around here, and it doesn't help that Jim went up to Iowa this weekend. Even if we didn't get any planting done we still could be planning. Or fretting together.

Katie spent yesterday organizing the stuff she brought home from school. She is setting up her containers by room, which will definitely help when she moves into her apartment in the fall. She is also purging clothes and other items she didn't use for the last nine months, and that is awesome. The Clean House folks would be proud.

There's the buzzer, so I'm off!

There's no one in the tub, but at least I now have one in my bathroom. The guys picked it up this morning and it sat on the front porch in all its porcelain glory until this afternoon. I'm sure the neighbors loved it. Oh wait - our streets been torn up since August, so a tub on the porch? No biggie... The plumber was here this afternoon to hook the tub up and set my spray jets, but apparently there is something he didn't like with the overflow valve so he has to come back tomorrow after lunch. I'm not sure if the contractor will begin to drywall in the morning or not since the plumber isn't done.

Also in the afternoon, Henry Plumbing is delivering everything else we purchased for the project, with the exception of the vanity top which will not be ready until next week. I guess all the items will sit in the entry foyer until they are ready for them upstairs. Good thing we weren't planning a party anytime soon!

I have been working on Jim's quilt commemorating his Route 66 motorcycle trip last year. It is all done except for the binding, which needs to be hand sewn to the back of the quilt. I can sit and do that while I channel surf between American Idol and the Olympics tonight.

One of the bonus items of going to see my in-laws last weekend is that it forced us into getting our Christmas shopping done - at least for them. It feels really good to say I have that side of the family finished. I've been picking up a few things here and there, and the kids have been sending ideas our way. It shouldn't be too hard to finish things up. What has been time-consuming is the stocking I am making for Megan. I hand made felt stockings for the four of us years ago - the kind with all the beads and sequins on them. Andy had requested that I make one for Megan to go with his.

Her stocking is called "The Procession", so it has Mary on the donkey holding Jesus, with Joseph and the three wise men walking along with her. Oh, and an angel and star for good measure. In the years since I made our stockings, Bucilla (the manufacturer) has added a lot more pieces to the kits. Or perhaps I picked the one with the most pieces. All those little faces and hands to be embroidered and stuffed. Thank God for cheater readers! I've been working on it here and there, and finally realized I had better kick it into gear if I have hopes of her getting it for Christmas in 2009. I worked on it for about 5 hours yesterday and will try to do the same today. Needless to say, I won't be working on any new quilts for the time being!