Patchwork Potholders 🌹 🪡 🧵

I had trouble with the tiny triangles from the book “101 Patchwork Potholders” by Linda Causee. So I picked this one, number 56, which only uses “square G”. 

It’s supposed to look like a flower in a pot when you hold it diagonally, but I didn’t have scraps that really made that effect happen. One of the cats peed on a pile of squares, so I’m using the ones they didn’t get.  

This is the first one I did.  The plain colors make it easy to spot inaccuracy. 

Then I did this one, which still has inaccuracy, but it’s harder to tell with the prints on the fabric. 

Then I decided I wasn’t crazy about that “flower” design anyway. So I did one just alternating the squares. Yes the one with the triangles is from the Harry Potter fat quarter bundle from Walmart. I guess the Harry Potter denim chenille quilt isn’t happening. The idea disappeared from my inspiration. That means I can take the receipt for it out of the chartreuse envelope. 

 Maybe inaccuracies with these teeny tiny pieces can be fixed with placing a pin each time I make a seam. I also need bifocals pretty badly. I’m due for an eye exam in October. He told me to get them but I wasn’t willing to face middle age and say yes to bifocals. Oh well. I was taking my glasses off and putting them on a lot while making these. I’m still going to make potholders out of them for my own kitchen. 

Missing People Connected?

 Some documentaries popped up in my YouTube suggestions about missing persons, and I put them on to fall asleep to in the motel in Louisiana. While watching them, I realized that Brianna Maitland and Maura Murray disappeared only about a month apart from each other. It was also the same general area (New Hampshire and Vermont, both close to the Canadian border). They look similar and are about four or five years apart in age. Could they possibly be together in some kind of Ariel Castro situation?  It’s been 20 years. With these, anything is possible. Or maybe they *were* together in some kind of Ariel Castro situation, and their captor(s) completed their end game. I posted this question online, and absolutely no one agreed. Brianna Maitland had gotten into a fight with another teenager right before she disappeared, so everyone thinks that girl killed her.  Everyone thinks Maura wandered off after her fender bender and succumbed to the elements. (If that happened, they’d have found her after 20 years. After a car accident, how far could she have wandered?). 

I don’t know. No one knows. That’s why these things are called mysteries. I think with most of these unsolved mysteries, the truth is so far out from everyone’s assumptions. Criminals take advantage of the fact that everyone is going to be looking suspiciously at their spouses, their parents, or people they didn’t get along with in their daily lives. Criminals benefit from the fact that everyone’s attention is on something else or someone else. Most of the ones found alive were found just in some random dudes house. For this reason, they can often hide in plain sight. 

I’d like to see at least 5-10 more missing persons be found alive in my lifetime. 

Cajun Pantry Haul

 

Kevin and I just got back from a 6 day business trip to southeastern Louisiana. I love Louisiana!  It has such a Unique culture and history. I also like most of the food, even though I would never eat a gator or a rodent. I picked these three pantry items up at the grocery store we did inventory at- Cajun spaghetti sauce, Cajun pinto beans, and regular Cajun spice with pretty artwork on the front of the swamp. Louisiana is even more green than Houston- something that always amazed me, having come from Arizona. I’m so glad to be home, though. Can’t wait to see my 🤑 check 🤑 

It’s Too Hot to Blog

 So a little over a month ago, I did purchase a Wordpress domain for $49 and started a blog about me working with children in the past. The blog now has 20 posts. I share memories of the past and also current articles in order to raise awareness and educate. For instance, I shared an article about a child left behind on a daycare field trip and shared all the tips I used over the years to make sure that never happened to me. I’ve also shared things I learned in shaken baby training and SIDS training. I want to talk about car seat safety as well, but it seems like car seat safety guidelines change CONSTANTLY. I did pester someone in a comment section who was judging the parents of a child pictured in a car seat to show me a picture of it being done right and after a million fricking comments, she gave me this:

But I feel like as soon as I make a post about it, the guidelines will change again and the car seat Karen’s will come for me. Maybe I’ll hold off. 

I share memories of when I worked at the children’s museum, and share my own pictures of my daughter enjoying our “Busman’s holidays” there. 

I get just about zero views unless I do something to encourage engagement. The most views come when I answer the daily prompt. But I have to make sure my answer fits with the blog theme. I also got a $50 credit and used $29 of it for a “campaign”. I “promoted” my intro post. I got a significant number of views, but no comments. Which begs the question, do I want comments?  That blog is different from this one, where I just mind vomit on a semi regular basis. If I do another campaign, it will be on my shaken baby awareness post. You might think, why would a shaken baby syndrome awareness/prevention post be controversial and generate negative comments?  Well because one of the recommendations is to set the baby down in a safe space (a crib with no pillows, blankets etc) and walk out of the room, only checking on them every 15 minutes (not actually touching them) until you feel like you’ve cooled off. This is considered “letting the baby cry it out” which a lot of people are against, and I am too- but it’s better than being murdered. Full stop. I had a little trouble conveying that in a professional manner. I never let my daughter “cry it out” but she was an easy baby, and I never felt any sort of “rage” (thank God). 

I also have five subscribers there. It also gives me a world map with countries in which people have read my blog from. It’s about half United States and half scattered throughout!  

There’s a clear difference between blogger dot com and Wordpress though. Blogger dot com has way more community. People interact more here. I stopped being able to interact when I acquired a second Google account. That’s why, when I want to reply to a comment here,

I can only do so with a screenshot on a new post. And I can’t comment anymore. Maybe Google thinks I’m shady 😎. Who knows, I don’t care. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

On Wordpress, like me, people have themes and don’t interact much. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t gotten comments there yet-

But I’m still scared to. 

Back in November, I participated in NaNoWriMo for only the first five days. I was on a rolld writing my book about having worked with kids so much, but then I just got emotionally exhausted from it. That’s why I quit on the 6th. I still saved what I did write. I want to do NaNoWriMo again this year, but the thought of making it 30 whole days without that emotional exhaustion is anxiety inducing. Having worked with kids in so many different roles- daycare, children’s hospital, child crisis center, CASA, and a little bit of hospital volunteering many years ago, comes with a lot of complex trauma. Over the years, I not only didn’t deal with my own trauma properly, but caring for all these kids in so many ways for so little pay has added layers. I had to carry theirs as well, obviously. Even though not directly, indirectly. It makes me get on these wonderful rolls with my writing and then all of a sudden I can’t anymore. She describes it well. 

Another thing about blogging is using images. It’s illegal to use images that you get from Google image!  You have to use images that come from a free stock image site or a paid stock image site to which you have a subscription. In my Wordpress blog, I’ve used my own photographs- most of which contain my own daughter. She’s aware of me using them, and I’ve asked her if it was ok to use them to which she said yes.  Advocates for kids that are shared online say they should be 15 to be able to give consent to be shared online, and mine is 17. 

But I mentioned briefly volunteering in a children’s hospital. In the old days they called them candy stripper because they wore red and white stripe dresses. Well by the early 2000’s the dresses were out, but I did have a red and white stripe polo shirt that I wore with either black or khaki pants. There is a picture of me in that shirt reading to a kid in a hospital bed. A nurse took it without my or the kid’s knowledge and then shared with me the next time she saw me. I can’t find it now for the life of me, but even if I could, I wouldn’t be allowed to share the picture of the kid. He must be an adult now, but it still would be illegal for me to share. So I tried to find candy stripper or “woman in a red and white stripe shirt” pics on the free stock image sites and these are what I got: 

At least that’s all I got that didn’t looks like it was trying to be pornographic 🙄. I like the lady with the blue dreads, but she isn’t wearing pants!  And her shirt doesn’t have stripes!  

When I tweak my Wordpress blog a little more, I’ll share it here. When I tweak it even more I’ll share it on Facebook. Makes me nervous but I want to share my life’s work. 

 

Birthday Tidbits

Yesterday was my 46th birthday. It might be kind of a morbid habit, but every year on my birthday I Google who died at the age that I’m turning. I started doing it when I was 36. I’m not sure why. I don’t t do it because I am anticipating and looking forward to death. I do it to be grateful. Notable people who died at age 46 were JFK, George Floyd, Andre the Giant, Chyna the wrestler, and George Orwell. Don’t regret growing old. It’s a privilege denied to many. 

I realize that maybe the reason why the pharmacist gave me so much of a hard time with my prescription was because she mistaking thought I had picked it up the day the doctor called it in. I didn’t. But still- being on gabapentin comes with a lot of professional people looking down their noses at you. The medication is a blessing, but comes with that. 

In more exciting news, I went to Whole Foods market and bought a tomato that looks like a butt!  I really went for some variations in my heart healthy sandwich creation. I got “broccoli sprouts” and more alfalfa sprouts. I’d never heard of broccoli sprouts before. I hope they’re good. Also got more nutritional yeast, which I’m actually not sure if it’s heart healthy or not. I’d have to google. I do know that a lot of vegans use it to replace cheese. You can throw it over pasta or stir fry veggies to make those things taste cheesy without cheese. My daughter used to ask me when she was really little, “Mommy can you make macaroni and nutritious yeast?”  It’s really good. 

More to come. 

 

Cardio ultrasound

 Yesterday afternoon I went for a cardio echo Doppler, which was basically like an ultrasound of my heart. The cardiologist that I saw for heart palpitations ordered it for just in case purposes. When I entered the room, the ultrasound tech asked me if I was still having palpitations. I said no. The cardiologist told me to give up energy drinks, and I did. The heart palpitations completely stopped about 48 hours after the last energy drink, and I haven’t had any in about a week. But I still went to the test just in case. 

I’ve never had an ultrasound of any other part of my body except for my uterus when I was pregnant. I thought the cardio ultrasound was pretty cool looking (and sounding). It really did feel like I was at an obgyn’s office getting and ultrasound to look at a baby. I wasn’t wearing glasses, so the heart also was sort of fetus shaped with my blurred vision. I thought to myself, what if that was a baby moving that much. It would be a very spazzy baby. But I didn’t say that out loud. The ultrasound tech was talking about her own energy drink addiction. She also has three kids and clearly a 9-5. If I had a 9-5 and three kids I might not be able to give them up either. 

Flowing Creativity

They sell Harry Potter fat quarter stacks in the crafting department at Walmart. I have a goal of setting up an Etsy shop with denim chenille quilts. I have a chartreuse envelope labeled “denim chenille quilt supplies receipts” in which I have receipts for the denim things I’ve cut up (mostly from 25 cent day at the thrift store), 12 spools of gray cotton thread from buy 3 get 3 free spools of thread day at Joann’s, and the receipts from 100% cotton solids. But I have no prints, nor do I have print ideas for the quilts. Then I saw the Harry Potter fat quarter stacks. I got one on a separate receipt for the chartreuse envelope, took them home to wash, dry, and iron, and sat there thinking, I remember fat quarters being bigger things. You can only get 6 squares out of them no matter how you slice it. There are five fat quarters in the stack, so 30 squares for that. When you need 144 cotton squares for a whole quilt. I suppose if I bought two more of these, I technically could make a Harry Potter denim chenille quilt if I alternated them with solids on the front. That would be cool. But maybe the other quilts can have more inexpensive themes. 

Then I got out the old enormous box of beads that Evita and I used to make jewelry with. We used to go to garage sales, and if they had a lot of beaded costume jewelry, I would offer $5 or $10 for “all of it”. They always accepted this offer. We would take it all home and cut it up, which resulted in this enormous bead stash. We made a lot of necklaces, bracelet, and earrings and sold quite a bit. Then I got the idea from my recycling and reusing facebook group to get a styrofoam cone and hot glue all the miscellaneous beads to it for a lovely Christmas decoration. Kevin took me to Joann’s to browse Saturday after my early birthday dinner, and I got one.  There it is pictured on the top of the bookcase. When I went through my bead stash, I saw that it was still enormous. So I got out the stretchy string and started stringing things randomly. I didn’t have wire cutters to do anything with wire though. Pictured on the towel below are the things I “whipped up” while sorting them all out. Even if something looks ugly or dumb, I still make it, because I’ve learned that there is someone out there that will wear it. That ugly chartreuse/lime necklace- honestly one of my deceased aunts would have like that. I might wear it too. 

I always glue the knots and cut the excess string off about 24 hours after gluing the knots. 

 

Patchwork potholders

 I recently purchased the book 101 patchwork potholders by Linda Causee. I had this book years ago but lost it somewhere along the way. I sat at the sewing machine in my room when I was about 19 and made several of these blocks. I made a couple into potholders. I think my mom still has one or two of the potholders. You can use this book just to learn patchwork also. You can make a bunch of the blocks as you wish and then just make them all into a quilt for that matter. But the book has directions on how to do a potholder. It suggests three layers of cotton batting. I’m not sure all of that is necessary. I only use one or two. 

When I told Kevin I got this book, he seemed excited about me making us some potholders. He mention that we don’t have any, and that we always use the kitchen towels to handle hot items. I was like- you’re right we do. We moved in here more than four months ago. And this whole time, we’ve been using kitchen towels as potholders. 

So first I traced all the shapes onto cardboard and saved all the cardboard pattern pieces in a ziplock. I picked one of the blocks in the book and cut out all the pieces including the binding. I got out my new iron and set it up so I can iron each piece as I go. With patchwork, you kind of have to do that. 

I also need to mention that Walmart had a package of cotton batting, enough to make something “queen size” on the clearance shelf for $13.  That’s enough for a lot of potholders.  

As I sewed each piece, I realized kind of quickly that the accuracy was way off. I wasn’t sure what I did wrong so I took them all apart with my seam ripper and then I noticed that the error was made with the ironing. I didn’t press them all the way open before I applied heat, and that caused it to be way uneven and the pieces were way off. 

I do sort of suck at ironing. I actually have an iron phobia. However, that little patchwork potholder stint I had at the age of 19 was pretty successful. I must have had an iron in my room. All the blocks were accurate. 

I have definitely been commented to once or twice in my life for having wrinkly clothing. 

It does give me this primal anxiety. I also know psychology basics enough to know that the way to get over it is to keep doing it. So maybe tomorrow evening, I can start over with more pieces and iron them right. Just got to convince myself that the iron can’t actually kill me, and I know how to treat it if I do burn myself. 

Here’s to some cute potholders. 

Evil Aunt

 

My evil Aunt G (right) meeting me (middle) right after I was born. That’s my mom on the left. 

I have an evil aunt that is 92 years old.  She’s my mom’s sister. She was 13 when my mom was born. No I’m not making this post because she’s dead. She’s not dead yet!!!  A couple months ago, the word was that she was “getting close” but then she bounced back. So I guess she’s like Svengali in more ways than one. (Kevin is insisting that the one that was too evil to die was actually “Svengoolie”. This debate of ours might lead to watching some 1930’s horror films soon). 

Anyway, there are two lies that came from Aunt g’s mouth that I want to call her out on in this post. She’ll never read it, but it helps to get it out. 

First of all, when I was a teenager, she told me that everyone hated me. In fact, it was a shouting match in the middle of the garage during a garage sale she was helping me with. She got mad because whenever someone talked me down in price, I would just say ok, and not haggle back. I honestly didn’t care! She started screaming and getting crazy in the garage and was literally right in my face screaming “EVERYONE HATES YOU!”  And I don’t know, here we are almost 30 years later, and since then, most of my cousins have joked about celebratory actions they’re going to take at her funeral. Aunt G has 7 grandkids and 12 nieces and nephews besides me, and we all have extremely dramatic stories of abuse from her. I was thinking out loud at how many visceral reactions I have to this day that instantly bring me back to the garage with her screaming in my face that everyone hates me. Sometimes it’s automatic, like the littlest things will remind me of that and then I’m physically back there. 

Well today, it dawned on me. Everyone actually doesn’t hate me. In fact, I would say the vast majority of people don’t hate me. And actually, here’s the kicker- zero people are joking about tap dancing on my casket when I die. No one is doing that. But!  That’s what people are saying about her. So I would say I have a leg up on her for that. 

Another lie she told me when I was growing up was this-

That there was no way I could possibly ever have a boyfriend or husband who truly wants me. In fact, she said, if I ever found myself with a man who I *thought* might be actually interested in me or actually in love with me, then according to her, he was actually playing a joke on me. 

I’m sure you can imagine what havoc that’s caused in my life. But in the end, it’s not true. When I think back to that lecture from her (when I was about 15-16), and I look at Kevin and myself, I think- Aunt G knew exactly what she was doing there. As a mom of a teen now myself, I get it. But I don’t get it in an understanding sense- I get it in a “how dare you“ sense. She 100% knew that telling me that would form a core belief that would travel with me throughout my life and systematically mess with me both in the day to day and in the long term. She knew it would cause harm, and that’s what she wanted. 

I can’t really imagine telling anyone either of those two things. The only people that “everyone hates” are probably men who are serial killers and men who abuse children sexually. And even then, there are a few out there who want to spare them. 

The thing about “any man who appears to want you is just playing a joke on you” really starts smelling like a lie as I get older and start to realize there’s literally someone for almost anyone. Seriously, have you ever seen a couple get together and think oh my god, how did even THEY find someone???  I have plenty of people in my life that I thought this about when they announced engagements or whatever. It just shows that there’s someone for everyone. What she did there was plant a seed that would hopefully cause me to sabotage my own relationships. It’s not working. 

 I mentioned here before that I saw my primary care physician about ten days before he left his practice to go to work for the VA. His last day was May31, and I think I saw him about the 20th?  At that time, he sent in a gabapentin prescription to Walmart for one whole year- that is, 90day supplies with three refills. However, I had picked up my last 90 day supply on March 29th. Gabapentin is the only thing that helps my debilitating anxiety. SSRI’s, SNRI’s (which help depression but not panic attacks) do not help, nor do benzodiazepine, CBD, drinking wine or liquor, smoking anything, etc. 

The only problem with gabapentin is that some people are against it. My therapist was against it. He told me not to tell psychiatrists that it works for me and to “at least try” meds I’ve already tried before. I went to two psychiatrists that were against it and wanted me to try another medication that I had already tried before and absolutely hated. But I couldn’t tell these doctors that- my therapist had said that telling a doctor what works for me is actually “drug seeking behavior.” Sometimes, the pharmacists are against gabapentin as well. They give you every excuse in the book why they can’t fill it, even though the doctor sent it in. 

My prescription is for three capsules a day. I’m supposed to take one every 8 hours, but I still treat it as an “as needed” medication as long as I don’t exceed three a day. If I’m having a bad day, I’ll take 3. If I’m having a good day, I’ll take only one. I usually wake up at about 3:00-4:00 am and I know by about 8 or 9 am how bad my anxiety will be that day and if I need all three or only one. 

This is because with so many doctors, pharmacists, and therapists against it, I feel like I need to build a stash, either in case of some kind of natural disaster where supplies on everything is low (think prepper mentality) or, in a more likely scenario, that doctors and pharmacists just stop giving it to me. 

I’ve been struggling with panic attacks for ten and a half years. They literally started January 17, 2014. In the last decade, I’ve done what I was supposed to, I got help and I sought a psychiatrist and therapy. I found a medication that works, but at the same time, the same professionals that helped me find what works also want to kind of shame me for the fact that THAT is what works. There’s this underlying sense of, what do you mean gabapentin is what helps you?  It’s as if I would be in some higher moral ground as a person if another medication was what worked. 

By the time July 1 rolled around, I had 75 pills left from the 270 pills I  got on March 29. So, I guess that meant that there were approximately 30 days out of the last 90 that I only needed one pill. But since 90 actual days had passed, I called the pharmacy and asked for a refill. This would have been the first time getting the new prescription that my old PCP called in on about May 20. Ten minutes later, my phone rang and it was the pharmacist. She said she couldn’t fill my gabapentin.  She had a tone in her voice that was haughty and mean. I asked why not?  She told me, “It’s a medication that we need to be careful with, because it’s controlled in some states.”  I told her I know that. But is it controlled in Texas?  No. Ok well then Texas is where we are right? She tried to tell me it was too early. I said, today is July first and I picked this up March 29th. That’s more than 90 days, and it was a 90 day supply. Actually my insurance would have covered it two or three weeks ago, but in order to avoid these accusations, I wait 92-93 days to ask for a refill. She said “Well it’s just something we need to be careful with because it can be abused and it’s controlled in some states.”  She gave me some more run around, and from what I could gather, she just had a moral objection to that medication in general. 

You only really hear about this happening with things like birth control or abortion pills. There are horror stories of women in the middle of a miscarriage, their doctors call them in something to speed up a process, and they get shamed and refused because the doctor called in an abortifacient for a baby they were losing anyway.  You don’t really hear about it with medications that help mental health conditions. I was appalled and just hung up on this pharmacist. I can’t turn to my doctor, because he’s long gone working at the VA. So I just said, maybe this is it. Maybe the 75 I have left is what I need to make last, only take one if it gets really bad, and then just run out of them and go back to square one. 

I look back to where I was ten years ago when I first started getting panic attacks, and I am so so ahead of that woman now. I don’t even recognize her. I have so much going for me now that I didn’t have then. I have a loving partner, several income streams, my daughter is a young woman and not a child, I mean I have so many advantages. My creativity is also flowing big time. I’m sewing and writing, and I’m doing a lot of physical workouts. I’ve lost 17 pounds so far in 2024. I’m just doing so much better, and I think having the right medication plays a big role in all of that. 

So after that hanging up on the pharmacist, I took only one pill a day for the next week or so. Then I went a couple days without taking any to see how I felt- and I felt absolutely hellish. Gabapentin withdrawals last about 3-5 days. So this morning I took three, and I picked up the phone and I called the Walmart in my old neighborhood, where I used to live before I moved in with Kevin. I asked them if they could transfer it to their location, and they did with absolutely no problems. I then drove 65 miles to go pick it up. Then I realized that when the doctor called it in on about May 20th, he called in that I can take a total of four a day- up from three. Why did he do that?  On purpose? By accident? Because he knew I’d have trouble getting another doc to give it to me?  So my 90 day supply consists of 360 pills instead of 270. 

That will really help my stash! What really sucks and I’ll say it again- is that people will beseech you to get professional help with your mental health. I just think it sucks that I’ve done that and then just gotten shamed for the specific medication that helps me. Like I’m sorry the medication you get kickbacks for doesn’t help and actually makes me worse?  Why should I have to apologize for that? I shouldn’t. 

Hippie Anthem

 This song was actually playing on the radio today. I remember it from the Forrest Gump soundtrack. 

If a song produces lyrics like “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” then it must have come from a different time. These days it’s more like, “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure you don’t get stabbed.” 

Close to Home

 When I was in high school, a 13 year old boy in my neighborhood went missing.  The rumor going around my high school was that he was living on South Mountain, which overlooked the city of Phoenix. Adjacent to this rumor were more rumors that other kids were helping him survive by brining him food and supplies. His aunt, however, was my mother’s coworker, and she insisted that he’d been murdered by his best friend. My mother and I used to fight about this. She believed the aunt, and I believed the rumors at school. In my senior English class, another student got into a screaming match with the teacher over his insinuation that Brad was dead.  Through hysterical tears, she insisted he didn’t know what he was talking about and that she KNEW the people who were helping him survive! 

In 2018, I returned to South Mountain to hike with my former boyfriend and his two kids. In the 1990’s, the only part of South Mountain you could really hang out at was the very top. But now over 20 years later, there were several parks along walking trails that had not been there before. I walked around, meditated while looking out at the city, and Brad entered my mind. In 2018, he would have been 36 years old. There were so many people on South Mountain now for leisure, that there wasn’t any way he’d possibly still be there. 

I didn’t know yet, but they had actually proven Brad’s death by finding over an inch of his blood in his best friend’s family trash can. No one would survive that much blood loss. That’s the main way a person is proven deceased without finding a body. I didn’t find this out until quite a while after my trip to South Mountain with the kids. I wish I had known it in the 90’s when I would fight with my mom over it. 

This documentary talks about Brad Hansen and Jeremy Bach starting at about the 35:30 mark. There really isn’t any part of me anymore that hopes Brad is still on the mountain. Not with that kind of proof. If there wasn’t the blood evidence, though, I would still have hope. Maybe Brad’s case and its proximity to my life at the time in so many ways is part of the reason why I’m so passionate about keeping hope that missing people could still be alive. Despite being wrong about Brad, I don’t give up when it comes to others. 

Tidbits l

 I got to go to 25 cent day at the Family Thrift Outlet on Hwy 6 this past Wednesday morning!  There was also $20 to be made at the neighboring HEB grocery store for pictures of frozen and refrigerated meat. I bought all the neckties they had at the thrift store, for Evita’s skirt or skirts. As I was walking away with the neckties, I noticed a woman giving me a dirty look. I thought maybe- maybe her husband need to go on interviews and needs a tie?  So I asked her. “Do you need to look at the ties?”  She kept glaring at me. I repeated myself and asked again. Maybe she didn’t speak English, but it was eluding me at that moment how to translate what I’d just said. So I stood in line, then put the bag of ties in my car and went to do the meat job at the neighboring supermarket. I went back to the thrift store and picked out some more jeans, including a pair of green jeans!  I’ve been doing great at getting all the colors of the rainbow in denim from this thrift store, but green was a hard find. Perhaps a rainbow denim chenille quilt will be in my future. I think I’d keep that one, unless it was really bad ass- then I’d try to sell it. Maybe. Back in the 80’s, jeans in colors of the rainbow were popular.  I remember thinking they were the coolest thing ever, and asking my mom for purple jeans when I was about nine!  Can’t remember if I got them or not. 

The pattern for the denim chenille quilt on the glory quilts website says the best thread color to use is gray  so I went to Joann fabrics where spools of 100% cotton thread was buy three, get three free.  So I spent $35 on $70 worth of gray thread  12 spools- 6 large and 6 small.  Came home and wound up seven empty bobbins with the new thread and started cutting apart the ties.  Fewer of these ties were 100% silk with horsehair interfacing. I also took complete inventory of all my 6” squares.  It takes 144 denim squares and 144 quilting fabric squares to make the size quilt that I made each of the ones I made for Evita’s birthday.  I have 390 regular denim squares.  I also have 104 black denim squares, 24 red, 27 orange. 16 yellow, 13 green and 24 purple denim squares.  In cotton quilting fabric for the other side, I have 124 solid white, 105 solid gray, and 66 solid black.