Too early?

Stellas food stand and Mollys ashes... On display. Our little
memorial. My husband I have agreement. We trade "death duty".
Last time he made all the decisions and the other spouse can't
kibbitz. He chose ashes, I chose group cremation and I'm making a
memorial quilt.

O Stella! Star!


Goodbye little Stella Bean!
Today we put down my sweet little Stella.. When they Xrayed her lungs yesterday she had very little function left. A fast metastasized cancer they think. She hasn't been well, she's old,yesterday she ate and today she refused, it's time.
Stella got her name from a PJ Harvey song "O Stella" which has long, long been a favorite of mine. I saw PJ Harvey at Jabberjaw or at Al's bar and a couple of other times in LA when I lived there 15 years ago, and at the old La Luna when I moved here to Portland. I used to live at the Malvern which was a short walking distance from La Luna ... mmm goodtimes.... Lots of cider.
( in fact - if you knew Carly and Micheal before they were the Weezer Merch Girls - contact me- I still talk to Nicole)

I got a job, I worked like a dog, I bought a house, I fell in love and moved out to the 'burbs.

Stella was my last connection to the younger Portland/LA me, the free, breezy, punk rocker that danced nearly naked at Mudhoney( in LA it gets really hot and in my defense the boys took their shirts off - and I was going thru a seriously radical feminist phase- can you say "riot grrrl"?) . That girl who danced for hours and hours at clubs, and thought nothing of driving home on the freeways late at night shirtless. Come to think of it I spent a great deal of time in my 20's in LA - in various states of night time public undress. To look at me now, a fat old housewife living in a very conservative part of Washington County you'd never think I was as wild as I was.

Stella was bossy and determined and reminded me of myself in my youth. She looked at me at the MultCo Dog Rescue and said "Bitch! you're NOT leaving without ME! Get me out of here!"
I didn't ask anyone if they wanted to live with her.... I just brought her and Molly home.

Please, in memorial, listen to this song?



Thanks for all your nice thoughts and generous support. A lot of you have been really sweet. I'm grateful.
Quilters Rock!

20$ temporary bifocals

Now that I'm old, I sometimes need a little help doing hexes and hand
sewing bindings... :)
I'm not ready for bifocals yet but these temporary bifocals just stick
on and have a handy storage case.
*edit* its 2 weeks later and I still haven't used them. I was at the Eye Dr. with mom and decided I needed them and I'm sure I will soon- right now I just take off my glasses to see close up- which leaves me vulnerable to anything further away than 3 feet.

Stella Marie your my Star!


IMG_2199
Originally uploaded by 2ndAveStudio
Yesterday I spent most of the day at the Vet Office.
Stella is now at home at resting. We had the dreaded discussion about
palliative care and diagnostic excess.
Xrays show she has something on her lungs... crap.
Things were just getting to a new normal...
( I haven't really written about it but I think someone put a diaper on the ceiling fan because poop is flying... we have had some pretty serious bad news regarding the decline of our parents. my FIL and my mother. I haven't gone into it because I don't want to try and put it into words and talk about my feeling- ugh! )

She told me was hungry this morning so she had an egg with rice.. and is resting again. Hooray!

Serging to a Finish

Friday, I went to Modern Domestic with some of my Modern Quilt Guild pals. Cherri was visiting from Alaska for the Blues Festival and won't be back till September. So a small collection of us ate dinner at the Tin Shed and walked a few doors down to sew.

Modern Domestic has sergers. Those scary multi thread things with a cutter. So I made this quilt a big giant queen sized quilt. Its been a beast to wrangle around. I had just taken it off the machine and it needed a trim and the binding attached.

I asked to try a serger... I took my untrimmed monster and used the serger to Trim and Attach the binding in one fell swoop! Awesome!

In retrospect, I think next time I would square the corners before I serge the binding the on, but otherwise it was a screaming success. Thanks Modern Domestic.

Quilters Rock!


Flea Market Fancy


IMG_2185
Originally uploaded by 2ndAveStudio
I made up some scrap bags of FMF prints. Perfect for hexies and other small projects. 10 different prints per bundle.
I put them over in my shop at $12.50.

Mama needs to buy batting....

Whew... I put 5 up at first and they flew out the door...
listed another 15... Gosh Folks .. Thanks so much!

Rachel