caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- picking up the pieces Oops, forgot to write yesterday. By the time I remembered last night I was far too tired to get off the sofa and sit at the computer. Yesterday was a good day. Mom and I went to our quilt guild meeting in the morning, and then to the awesome Kaleidoscope Quilt Show in Sylvania in the afternoon. Oh. First, Friday night. Friday not was Not Good. I came home and collapsed after a very annoying day at work. I snuck out a bit early, since Grandma Boss was gone for the day having some undisclosed but apparently minor surgery (apparently minor, since she expects to be back on Tuesday). I still felt pretty sickish, and on top of that my body decided to bear out my earlier suspicions that I am, indeed, not pregnant, a few days earlier than expected. So I had cramps and backache on top of everything else. Therefore, I don't think I moved off the sofa, except for necessary potty breaks for me and for Sophie, from the time I got home at 3 until BB got home at 11. When BB got home he was in a Very Bad Mood. He'd been attacked by some heavy metal equipment at work (I didn't really grasp his description of how it happened), and had a nasty open wound on his hand. Knowing YB was at the Dementors of course affected his mood as well, although he wouldn't really admit that was part of it. And cousin S was being difficult about SK and Auntie's return tickets from London. He doesn't intend to be difficult, he's just really concerned about them flying standby and it turned out they weren't able to get on the flight yesterday. Poor things, stuck in London for another day. It's understandable the S is concerned, because he's very anal about stuff like that, but he's called like 12 times this weekend asking BB about it, and it's getting kind of old. I told BB that we really need to think about it before doing these sorts of favors for family again, if it's going to be this much of a hassle. I mean, BB saved Auntie like a thousand dollars on plane tickets because of his discounts, and S just can't trust BB to handle it even though he's perfectly capable. So anyway when the phone rang at 11:30 and caller ID (love modern technology!) informed us it was S, BB refused to answer it and became even more pissy. Then he started telling me about his conversation earlier with Lawyer Lady, and that the Dementors wanted to clarify some of the holiday things before signing the papers. Well, I happen to disagree with BB about giving them every Easter. BB doesn't think this is a big deal. So, I told him, I thought fairly non-judgmentally, that I thought it would be nice to have YB with us on Easter occasionally, since we never have, but that it was up to him. BB didn't SAY that I was being unsupportive, but that was the attitude he conveyed. He didn't say anything else to me for a few minutes, and then took Sophie out for a walk. He didn't come back for a while, and I, rather sensibly I thought, went to bed. Of course once I was there I started crying, although I tried to hold it back. It had been a while since I'd had a good cry, and it just makes me so sad to see BB get so angry; he's carrying around so much anger, but he won't deal with the things that really upset him; instead he gets upset at S, at the computer not cooperating, at getting hurt at work, at Daisy throwing up on the carpet. Like all that stuff was arranged by the universe just to personally annoy him. And, you know, I knew, logically, that it was unlikely that I was pregnant, but having that confirmed just hit me harer than usual this month for some reason. So I was crying, and BB came back and Sophie got up in bed next to me and nuzzled me because she obviously could tell I was upset, and BB came in and asked if I was ok and apologized, and we went to bed. To be woken up at 4 in the morning by a bunch of teenagers yelling and screaming downstairs. Actually, it was BB yelling at them to shut up that woke me, so I got up and found him heading downstairs to yell at them personally, which freaked me out, because despite the fact that they were probably 13 or 14 some were as big as BB. And BB, though very strong and nicely muscular from working out, is not tall, and looks deceptively skinny. So I stood at the window, poised to call 911, as BB faced down 3 or 4 of these guys (a couple took off running when they saw him coming down). He yelled at them and told them to keep it down as some people were trying to sleep, and that if they didn't shut up he'd call the police. I guess he managed to look intimidating enough bc they finally took off around the side of the building, and we didn't hear them again. This was a tad scary but I didn't berate BB for the fact that going downstairs along to face 4 or 5 nasty teenagers wasn't perhaps the brightest thing he's ever done, as obviously it allowed him to blow off some steam and work out some frustrations. I did advise him to perhaps call the complex in the morning and let them know, as we know where several of the perpatrators live. I will be so happy when we get out of this neighborhood. One month, maybe less! Just as an aside, no one has signed my guestbook in a long time. Wah. And I haven't gotten any google hits lately, either. Pout. So anyway, Saturday. Got up early as Quilt Guild starts at 9, and woke BB up as I left. I felt a bit yucky and shaky, but not nearly as bad as the day before. The meeting was rather boring as usual, because the featured quilter was not a very good public speaker and I didn't care for her style of quilting at all. She makes art quilts. As a rule I like more classic quilt-making, but I do like some of the things quilt artists are doing now with art quilts, which are often based on tradition and given a modern twist. Hers, not so much. She makes wall-hanging size pieces based on photographs of flowers. All well and good, except that her technique is based mostly on fusing and fabric-painting. Which is fine, but to me that isn't quilting. It's textile arts, sure, but when you just iron the pieces together and paint them to get the right colors, how is that quilting? And of course she's won all sorts of awards and gotten grants and stuff, which she did not hesitate to tell us all about. Urgh. Mom found her as annoying as I did, so we whispered back and forth about that during most of her presentation. And honestly I didn't find her pieces even all that attractive, although many people were oohing and aahing over them The best part of Guild was the vendor, and the garage sale. I picked up some nifty fat-quarters at the vendors, and at the garage sale got some more fabric and a couple of used books for a good price. We went to lunch at Red Lobster, always a treat because I love love love their cheese garlic biscuits, although I was a bit wary because of my upset stomach the day before. I suffered no ill effects, fortunately. Then we drove down to Sylvania for the show. Their guild does an incredible show there every other year. There were such incredibly gorgeous quilts that it made me feel quite incompetant and foolish for even trying to do this. The one that won for best quilting was covered all over with the most gorgeous hand-quilting in lines and curves and patterns, in the tiniest, most perfect stitches. I know I won't ever accomplish anything like that, but I concluded that that's okay, because I'm just not that precise and never will be. One quilt did things with the log cabin block that was just amazing. And I positively lusted after some of the applique. The best of show quilt was increible. It was all done in shades of white and beige, which sounds boring, but came off as delicate and yet striking. It was sort of a sampler, and compined various patchwork blocks with applique. I can't come close to describing it. After drooling over (but very carefully not on) the quilts for an hour or so, we proceeded to shop the vendors for several more hours. Mom was so fun to be with. She has a certain amount of money from her settlement that she's decided just to spend on some of the stuff she's always wanted, and as she told me later, when she comes to these things she's always had to decide on one or two things to get, and budget very carefully. She didn't want to do that yesterday, and she didn't have to, so she pretty much bought whatever she wanted. It was hilarious, and so awesome. She deserves that much, after waiting 7 years for the money. And she bought me a lot more stuff than she should have, too, which I felt fairly guilty about but also enjoyed. I tried to make it up a little bit by paying for her stuff at one or two of the booths, but I was limited in how much I could spend, and I know I didn't come close to paying her back completely. It's so much fun pawing through fabrics and patterns and picking stuff out. It's funny to me that before last year I knew next to nothing about quilts, although I enjoyed looking at them, and couldn't care less about fabrics. Now I'm practically obsessed with color and print and pattern. And it's an expensive hobby, even more so than stitching, which I've done ever since I was little. I'm not sure why the quilting bug bit me when it did, but I think it's a good thing, because piecing those blocks in January was probably the only thing that kept me sane during that time. Now that YB's quilt is done (except for the binding, which I'm putting off but need to finish before he comes home) I need to decide on my next project. I'm itching to get started on something else but can't decide if I should work on something just for me, which I haven't really done yet, or start BB's or Dad's. My goal is to make a quilt for everyone in the family, eventually. I want to do one as a wedding present for Minnie, and I'd like to do a woodsy plaid flannely one for Kitty. For BB, I'm torn between bright, bold reds and blues, and darker blues and purples in a star pattern. And I'm already collecting fabric for Dad's, although I don't know what pattern I'll use. I have some wonderful prints with cowboy boots and hats, a couple with tractors, one with old trucks. I need to find some blenders and decide on a pattern for those. I can't wait to get his done and give it to him, I hope for Christmas. Mom's always the one who has gotten the homemade presents, and I think it will surprise and please Dad to no end to get one himself. And of course there's the wedding sampler to start for Minnie, and something fun to do for me with all the bright colors and fun prints I keep buying that I have no idea what I'm going to do with. One of the women working at a booth yesterday said something about how she it just made her happy to look at her fabrics and think about all the possibilities. I totally understand that feeling now. I could probably psychoanalyse my newfound love for piecing and quilting, what it means, the symbolism inherent in cutting up the pieces and putting them back together, making order out of chaos, beauty out of scrap. But I'm content not to overthink this for once, and just be happy in the contentment in brings me to look at my stash and my patterns and the see the beauty in the possibilities. 9:13 a.m. - 2001-07-22 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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