My Saturday Art Quilting Mania!

It was 99º in my sewing nook and our seventeen year old cat, Willow, had hopped up to join me and see if she could apply loose cat hair as an additional embellishment, today. She did, and it's not half bad! I've been on a steaming hot roll and nothing is going to stop me!

I was all excited about some new gifts I had received in the mail...new Shiva Paintsticks from Embellishment Village, along with some fabulous rubbing plates!

I had ordered them using a gift certificate, I had most generously been awarded by Betty Blais of Embellishment Village, for having reached my AAQI $1,000 Promise.

There were so many fun and exciting things to choose from the site that I had a hard time deciding, but these were items I knew I would definitely use, and re-use in the making of art quilts... and I've already started using them and they are wonderful!

And then, the fabulous and fun Beth Hartford at Quilters Stitch Together (and also our lovely AAQI Quilt Registrar Supreme) had mailed me some gorgeous hand dyes as another part of my reaching that goal. A beautiful shade of energizing orange and one of bright and grounding green. Awesome hand dyes! And perfect, of course, for art quilts! Oh, it was so much fun finding out I earned gifts, and even more fun receiving them in the mail!

And while I haven't received the package in the mail yet, so the photo above is a digitally altered to represent what I might get, the word on the AAQI express is that my final gift will be a selection of products from Surgeon's Secrets products from Jamark Labs Now, I'm showing their Survival Secrets gift pack ..it was the kind of day...and I could have used everything but the animal call and the camouflage suit... but I'm hoping for lip gloss, lotions, bath products, or their wonderful skin care products. But, I'll be thrilled with anything! Thank you so much to these fabulous sites. I can't wait to see what Jamark Labs sends me, for real! (note from later...lovely real life gift pack received...beeswax lotion in a fabulous tube, a rub on stick of lavender lotion, a beewax lip balm, and a hand scrub/softening product...beautifully gift boxed and exquisite to use!)

Please do go over and check them ALL out! I'd love to thank them by sending them even more business!

So, yep...I was (am) hot and ready in all my tropical Oregon hotness (and in spite of the upstairs heat ) ready to start some art quilting and couldn't wait to make some art and begin some free motion quilting on my next little AAQI art quilt.

And suddenly...all chaos broke out in the already over heated sewing nook. I ironed the wrong side of the Wonder Under of my art quilt right smack onto to my ironing board as I pressed it flat in prep for quilting. Yep, nicely attached to the ironing board...good job, Michele!

Then, I sewed a piece of material onto the back of my art quilt that wasn't supposed to be attached, with super tiny stitches as I was after, all art quilting and was trying out different stitches including, apparently, microscopic!

And hot, hot, hot because I could not, for the life of me, get my metallic gold thread that I have quilted with many times, to stay in the needle without shredding.,,.over and over and over. Re-thread the machine, re-thread the bobbin, adjust the tension, re-thread the machine, re-thread the bobbin. Oh, I was on a roll, all right. But I was still having fun!!!

The phone rings, and my husband looks at caller ID and announces: "It's another spam call. Don't answer it!"

I answer it anyway, I'm spatially dyslexic... and can't telling picking up/ from putting down...and it was...oh my goodness get ready for this.... Ami Simms !

I mean, here I am braving the heat in my Sewing Sauna making an art quilt and Ami calls! Wow...talk about timing!

She was calling to congratulate me on having six quilts donated, all in a row, for the AAQI Quilt A Month program! Boy, two goals in a row..how fun is this? Now that is a whole 'nother kind of nice feeling hot! Like hey! I just won a phone call, in person, from Ami Simms....how cool is that?

Now, I have emailed Ami Simms back and forth, many, many times for a variety of volunteer reasons but I've never spoken to her... one on one.

But, all I could think of ...was that I was so glad she didn't have an accent!

Since, my airplane "incident" in 2008 of Failed Wheel Flaps and Quick Landings on the way back from taking care of my mom in Alaska, I have had the most amazing tinnitus in my right ear from the forced super fast landing! And ever since, I cannot understand accents!

I have to put the words on the screen just for OPB series when people are speaking English English. I can't understand people from other States,it's impossible from other Countries, and I almost can't understand them if they are from one of the other Oregon zip codes then mine!

In between expressing fervent internal gratitude that she doesn't have an accent, I am thinking 'don't talk, don't talk'. I didn't mean her, I meant me! I was terrified I would start telling her everything that was going on at the moment and totally freak her out. Yep, that could easily be me.

So, bless my heart, my fried brain, and ringing ear, they pretty much kept me from even having much of a conversation. Sorry, Ami. And if I blabbered and did tell you my life story and have already forgotten it...the truth is.....you dialed the wrong number because I actually wasn't even home!

Phew. Good thing I think quickly on my feet!

Now, if I can just get the wonder under ironed onto the fabric softener sheet meant to loosen it from the cat hair on the ironing board, maybe the gold thread will help hide all my mistakes today! Nothing like a little embellishment for an art quilting Saturday!

But hey! I've got my fabulous Shiva paintsticks and rubbing plates, two lovely, lovely pieces of hand dyed fabrics from a fabulous fabric dye-er and pretty soon my hands are going to be as soft as a 20 year old's. Who knows? Maybe I will even be able to perform surgery and get that cat hair off the ironed wonder under that is sticking to my ironing board.

Mask up! I'm on it!

And if all else fails...sign me up for a rest home! This one is fabulous...watch their hilarious cute video: Clark Retirement Home