Why I am a Block of the Month

For several months now, I’ve been enrolled in two “block of the month” classes at Cool Cottons, just a few feet from my house as the crow flies. (And you won’t believe how many crows actually fly there, but that’s another post.)

One class is the Quilt as You Go Block of the Month, taught by quilter and teacher extraordinaire Joyln Buhl.

Handout from Jolyn Buhl's Quilt-as-you-go Block of the Month Class

Each month we get instructions and fabric to make a block. Many of the blocks are quite intricate.  Joyln loves her triangles! (And lucky for us, she teaches a totally cool way of constructing them…you need to take a class from her so you can learn it too!)

Once we finish a 9-inch-square block, we then add sashing from fabric of our own choice to increase its size to 15 inches.  We make a companion block called a setting block, from the same fabric as the sashing.

Then we machine quilt each block, then sew the quilted squares together in pairs, then join the pairs, and so on… the idea is that at the end of the year, we have a completed quilt of 24 squares (a square of a different pattern and its setting block for each month of the year).  Of course, this happens only if we keep up on our homework.  Because I fell so far behind before escaping from nerve pain hell, I’ve been sewing and quilting double time for the past few weekends.

The Maple Star square

Maple Star with sashing

And you just keep going and going.

After quilting both blocks, you add the setting block to the main block.

Then you sew two 2-block sets together like this:

Note how the setting blocks and main blocks are set opposite one another in all directions.

I’ve taken care to find fat quarters to use in the same color family for the backs of the blocks.

The back of a 4-block set.

If that weren’t enough, I also joined a Wool Applique Block of the Month club.  We’re working from one of Sue Spargo’s Folk Art Quilt patterns – Flowerbed

Each month, get luscious hand-dyed wool for one block, which we finish and embellish as we wish. You can see that my confidence is gaining:  my first few blocks were very basic, but now I’m adding embroidery and thinking more outside the box….I mean block.

So that’s how I’ve been spending lots of my weekend hours. There’s something so soothing about creating something with your hands when you spend your work hours making things with your mind. It’s my mediation and therapy all rolled into one.

One of the first blocks I did. That's why it's so simple and unembellished.

One of the last blocks I did. Note all the embroidery embellishment.

Why global warming keeps me up at night

As I’ve confessed here before, I am something of a weather geek. I watch the weather, track the weather, watch weather disaster shows on tv, consult the weather channel frequently, and think about the weather.

I actually studied the weather in college and grad school in the early 1970s, and learned about the greenhouse effect and global warming long before it became a popular media subject.

The amount of carbon dioxide human activity pumps into the atmosphere has only increased dramatically since then, of course. As has general awareness of the issue. And since today is a day when bloggers are invited to blog action day on climate change (see blogactionday.org for more info) participate in a global project to bring more attention to this issue, I am compelled to share what I believe I know for sure. (Sorry Oprah!)

What I believe I know for sure about global warming:

1. There has been a dramatic rise in CO2 in the last three centuries of human history. While there are short term variations, the graph below shows an unmistakable exponential increase over time since 1700. This is not a scam, it is not a conspiracy, it is simply data. Period. It’s not political, it’s not left or right, it’s just data. Data doesn’t care about our debates and arguments. It just exists. It doesn’t lie, it doesn’t care whether we listen or not. It just is.

2. If you look at the graph, you see that the dramatic rise started around the mid-19th century. What happened at that time? The industrial revolution, of course. Just as it dramatically altered the human experience, it dramatically changed the extent to which human activity produced CO2, and the only place for it to go was the atmosphere.  I think there is a lot of evidence that human activity is contributing significantly to CO2 level increases. It’s not the only cause, of course, but it is a contributing factor.

3. The global warming effect that gets the most airtime is rising sea levels. While that would be catastrophic for much of humanity because they live next to the sea, I think there are worse things to worry about. Like the release of methane, released into the atmosphere from melting permafrost, from the ocean as water temperature rises.  And methane traps heat radiating from the earth (which is where our heat comes from as opposed from direct solar radiation) 20 times more efficiently than CO2. At certain levels, it actually begins to burn. As in massive fire. The atmosphere ablaze? Now that would be bad. Even worse than rising water.

3. Given that data clearly shows that global temperatures (see right hand graph above) are on a rising trend, wouldn’t we humans want to do everything we can to keep our actions in check so we aren’t fouling our own nest? Disrespecting the only home we have? Can’t we live without consuming so much, satisfying our every desire or fancy? Can we bring it down a notch? Might it actually improve our quality of life? Beginning with us. Me. You?

4. And in the end, as this video shows, we may as well do whatever we can to take action to save our planet, because it’s a win-win or lose-lose proposition.  Please take the 10 minutes to watch this video. Do it for me. Do it for you. Do it for the future of humanity.

Why IMing on drugs is a very bad idea

I’ve already mentioned that my husband Ric is a saint. Well, I would actually put him above a saint. What do they call those? Popes? Okay, well he’s not very pope-like. That doesn’t really work. More like jesus really. But maybe there’s something in between. Someone please give me a word.

Anyway, when dealing with my recent pinched nerve and the pain, paralysis and prescriptions that came with it, it was  hard for me to communicate. Because I could lie in the most comfortable position I could achieve with my iPhone, I primarily relied on Instant Messaging to communicate with Ric. Believe it or not, I felt more fluent doing that than talking at the time because I think I was slurring my words when I talked. Turned out I was doing the same thing when I typed. The results will speak for themselves.

I thought I would share some of our conversations to illustrate why and how Ric is a substitute-word-for-something-better-than-a-saint-but-not-the-pope and why I am an utterly hopeless bitch on drugs.

Aug  16 11:53 a.m.

Me: Whats going on?

Ric: Lift not working

Me: Toouvuy weight? Yale pit saw

Ric: Jesus christ not the Yale pit saws

Aug. 17 12:43 pm

Ric: Can u hear me? How’s pain?

Apparently it took about 8 hours to hear him:

Aug. 17 8:32 pm

Me: My pills?

We had a bit of a disagreement about dispensing my medication. I wanted a kind of flow chart outlining what pills I needed to take at what time, so I would know what I was getting. Ric rightly gauged my inability to perform that kind of logical thinking or chart-looking at the time, so overruled me and put the pills I was supposed to take while he was gone into ramekins on the nightstand. I was afraid I wouldn’t know what I was getting that way and would not be able to track doing it that way. I already felt so out of control, I couldn’t handle it. Hence, my message cursing Ric, in a manner I’ve never done and hope will never do again. My only defense is that I was out of my mind.

Aug. 18 3:38

Me: Fuck u I need pills for this pain

Please to note that this was about the only sentence I managed to actually spell correctly for a whole month.

Ric: Be there 5 mins did u take codeine?

Aug 20 3:24 p.m

Me: Ntt

Ric: What?

Me: But need tkbrgvhiboo  daybijfi

Ric: One more time pop

Me: Fr jr   Too  Jgddstfbhynnjyupyrp  Can galulyc   Chab hhuuuvlllllllhinhjhtt

Ric: No more typing love

Aug 22 9:20 a.m.

Ric: Root canal starts now, see you in a few hours. Dr. Kim emergency dental 84th Halsey  Take 2 yellow pills in ramekin if needed about noon

10:44 am

Marie: K txhondep mnn I de

Ric: I’m getting root canal right now. You ok?

Me: Yss just hvaving troubltr typi Hbgp

Ric: Ok honey just rest I’ll be home in an hour or so

Me: Apple has fevioudslu rearrangedbball the kyes

Ric: Bastards!!

Aug 23 9;27 am

Ric: Did u take Meds?

Me: The little oarne and white es?

Ric: You took the ones by your bed?

Me: When they are removed from a container with out a label I’ve tolu I dislike that All I n

Ric: Yes you took right pills, oxycontin and flexoril.

Aug 23 3:24 p.m.

Ric: How u doing lover?

Me: Near. Mktdvkbb vghmjn cdcvnxxsrdiikiFirst surgical procedure on tues I can survive till than

Kidtchfexrfingvi vuurghbtuli ha getdvgoel

L

Watching tv cuz cany dew Kiss u

Mote s hatorate!

Ric: K

Me: Hateradt gggggggggggaterade

Ric: Got it first time

Somehow Ric knew I was requesting gatorade??

Aug 26 11:30 am

Ric: How u feeling

Me: I’m thinking it’s sunday

Ric: Weds

Me: Just ytook pain pill  Not doing so well

Ric: Oxy?

Me: vicpp

Ric: Vicodin?

Me: Yes

Ric: No oxy?

Me: Figured out why such trouble typing. Loat feeling in two fingers. No occx

Ric: 1 or 2 vicodin

Me: 1

After a few days of these exchanges, Ric developed magical superpowers at deciphering my code. Witness:

Aug 27, 1:58 pm

Ric: How u doin today

Me: Lying down Tried to work at computer but too paunfuuln   soon

Ric: Yeah you rest

Me: R u vknibnhnvbh o Me jhto walk oppops. Nehfkotrr vgerrambgfc?

Ric: No, you’re not expected to walk the dogs.

So apparently my texting gone wild was not limited to Ric, but provided endless amusement to my work buddies. Phoebe showed me her favorite, which she pointed out is in fact a perfect haiku:

In horriblepain 
Oxycotin not nouh 
Sleep oly escar

How August went missing

So sorry for the delay in speaking about this… but maybe you’ll understand why in a moment. I’ve mostly been typing this with one hand, not a very efficient approach for me.

Background

July had been pretty cool, I turned 60 without incident, Blaine turned 30 and the Free Geekers made it a really special day for him… I recorded part of it on my iPhone, and am trying to make it show up on YouTube (will let you know when it happens!)

There were a few stressful things at work at work but the huge project I was devoting myself to was going very well.

My mom had come up for a visit and we had a great time together quilt shop hopping and so forth.  Soon after she left I had a colonoscopy (double yuk), but for the first time ever had no polyps (I’m in a high risk group) so I was on top of the world.  I had scheduled a vacation day for the following day (July 24) because my oldest dearest friend and I were planning to visit Heronswood Nursery on the one day of the year it’s open to the public.  But they switched the day on us, so we decided to postpone our nursery expedition til the spring.

I kept it as a vacation day, which was more or less a good thing because my intestinal system was taking its time getting back on track and I was feeling a little weak. So I spent nearly the whole day trimming squares for a very intricate quilt, and was so happy to finally be finished with it!  By Saturday, I was feeling well enough to be out and about, so went to the Free Geek Volunteer Appreciation BBQ. One of the featured attractions was Blaine playing three players at once in a kind of chess marathon for nearly five hours.  Not very surprisingly, he won every game (more than 100), not even a single one ending in a draw.  My mom had made a quilt to supply for the raffle, which went to a very appreciative winner, saw lots of my geeks, had a great conversation with Rev Phil, so it should have been a terrific day.

The Onset

But I just really wasn’t feeling well. And I kept raising my left arm, I didn’t really know why, but it seemed to alleviate some kind of growing discomfort. It was bothering me enough that we left early, and I went to bed really early. Unfortunately, by the next morning, I was in a world of hurt.  Took some ibuprofen, napped, but by the evening, I was crying out in pain.

Ric tried his best to convince me to go the the ER but by then, I knew I was not even capable of sitting in an ER chair waiting for 5 mins., let alone the usual 6 or so hours required at our local hospital on a Sunday evening. (Been there, done that.)  Instead, I just thrashed about on the bed, moaning and crying and even yelled at Ric to just leave me alone. I wanted no light, no sound, no movement, no input of any kind. Honestly, I was like a dog at the end of his life, wanting to find a dark corner under a porch where I could just curl up and die in peace.  Don’t remember every feeling quite this kind of pain.

I thought I might be having a muscle spasm of some kind and I had some pills left over from when I had one a few years ago, so I took some, more ibuprofen, finally mercifully feel into a kind of stupor sleep.

Seeking Help

The next morning my goal was to get in to see my doctor. Finally convinced the triage nurse to let me have the last appt. of  the day (Mondays are not easy to get in).  I somehow made it through the day and Ric took me in.  Dr. T took one look at me and said he thought I was having a bad muscle spasm, prescribed muscle relaxants and stronger pain meds, which we promptly filled at the pharmacy.

The medication knocked me on my ass but in the brief moments I was conscious, the pain was still there and just as bad.  Somehow I got my phone working and emailed folks at work that I was home sick (at least I think I did, but sometimes my messages went a little astray, apparently I am quite fluent in gibberish). [More on that next time]

Dear coworker and friend Sally, who has been through similar issues rushed over with some wonderful local camphor pain patches, a sling, and some tender loving care. She also referred me to an acupuncturist she had used, and I made an immediate appt. Wow, what pain relief I got!! I was so happy and started making plans to go back into the office.

How disappointing it was to discover the relief was temporary. My oldest dearest friend Joyce took me to PT and back to Dr. T.  He did an x-ray and ordered an MRI. Other than medical appointments, I just took my medication and went into Rip Van Winkle mode. I learned that it is indeed possible to sleep approximately 23.75 hours per day.

By this time I was losing feeling in and use of my left arm. My two little fingers were utterly useless and my arm felt like it was constantly hitting a funny bone and randomly twitching. That’s when I learned that my health insurance HealthNet denied the MRI (after taking a week to decide). My doctor referred me to a neurologist, who gave me even stronger meds after examining me (apparently I told him I needed to lie down and since there was no exam table in the room, I just plopped myself on the rug at his feet. I don’t really remember this part but Ric assures me it really happened.) After my appointment there, I can only assume that his and Dr. T’s advocacy finally got HealthNet to approve an MRI.

The MRI showed two herniated disks in my lower cervical area, which were pinching nerves to my left arm.  Very quickly I got an epidural spinal injection (a painful procedure, I must say) of steroid to help reduce the inflammation. It helped a little and very slowly the pain reduced.

At this point I was more concerned about how I couldn’t use my left arm. The morning when summoning all my might, I could not get fingernail clippers to clip a hangnail on my right hand was one of the low points.  Even assuming I was lucid and upright enough to actually do something, everything I need to do or enjoy doing pretty much takes two hands. (Reading and watching tv put me right to sleep.)

Detox

It was finally occurring to me that living in a 24 hour drug induced coma was not for me. For example, when the doctor who did the spinal injection looked at me as I prepared to lie on his table, he took one look at me and said, “Well, I can see I won’t need to sedate you.”  Since the pain was getting better, I started taking fewer pills.

Oh. my. god. That was not fun. Coming off the oxycontin was worst. Later, I counted out that I had only taken 16 of the 60 pills in the bottle, but I swear I was becoming addicted. Well, that’s not really the right word, but I don’t know if there is one.  I didn’t get high, just went into a coma. The moments I would rouse I could still feel my pain, but mostly I was in a coma.  When I say addicted, I mean that I think my body adjusted to its being there so fast it wanted to punish me when I stopped feeding it.  I was also taking other powerful painkillers and muscle relaxers, so maybe it was the combination. Even the steroid had unpleasant side effects.

And oh my god, the insomnia. It’s such a bitch. Literally entire nights without one wink of sleep.

The drugs had also done a number on my stomach and entire digestive system, so that was another few days of detox in its own way while I suffered through trying to find that delicate balance between too much and too little. If you know what I mean.

I lost a lot of work time, believe I have used up all my sick time and now using vacation time as I make my way back.  Fortunately, I have a very kind and supportive boss who has been expressing his concern through Ric and reassuring us that I’m not being abandoned!  For which I thank my lucky lucky stars.

The Miracle

There was an evil little demon lurking in the wings while this was going on. As long time readers know, a year and a half ago we started getting some help for the first time with the personal care Blaine is not able to do by himself. Fran is just a wonderfully helpful presence in our household, carrying on while the medical system struggled to find the source of some serious health issues she was having. (It finally did but took more than a year, and there was absolutely no reason it should have. In this case, it was Kaiser, lest we think only HealthNet has not served people in this story as well as one might hope.)

But Fran and her husband were planning nearly a month long holiday in the UK (where Fran is from) during the month of September. Since we have no other source of help, I had been planning to take some vacation time in September and do some work from home, so I would not become exhausted and overwhelmed by doing too much as I have in the past.)

Okay, so I can’t even clip nails or type with my left arm. How the hell was I going to be able to get through this little challenge?  Parts of his care are incredibly physically challenging. It had taken months to find Fran. In fact, no one was willing to perform the particular personal care Blaine needs was available from the state’s list of caregivers I was give to call, so when we met Fran and she learned of our plight, she went through the training to get certified just so she could help us. (Which is another long story exposing other unseemly parts of various bureaucracies.)

Anyway, to cut to the chase, Fran is a saint. Basically, she dusted off her angel wings and slayed the demon. When she watched me in pain and partially paralyzed, she set herself to finding someone to take her place. She found someone! Today is Pat’s first day on the job (she came all last week for training). The universe must indeed be smiling on us now because seriously, what the hell would we be doing otherwise?!

Present Status

I’m feeling better everyday, pain still diminished but lingering, regaining use of my left arm bit by bit, doing some actually job work from home now (uh, yeah, even today, I forgot today was a holiday, kinda hard to keep track of days when a month goes missing!), and even did a bit of tentative typing with my left hand.

I drove my car for the first time in more than a month yesterday. I have PT and acupuncture appts scheduled, another epidural on Sept. 15th and a referral to a neurosurgeon, but in the meantime, I plan to work from home and phase back into the office. I miss my friends there a lot!

I’m so glad to finally feel I’m on the downhill part of this journey. I still feel incredibly disoriented. There are big chunks of the past month I can’t even remember.  My apologies for all the unanswered emails, phone calls, and whatever else. Frankly, I can’t totally remember what I said and who I said what to. I can’t even imagine who I might owe apologies to…

In fact, next entry I will humble myself before all the world and reveal some of my instant messaging on drugs and demonstrate that my dearly beloved husband is more than a saint.

Quilt Shop Hopping in Sew Oregon 2009

Last week my mom was visiting so we participated in the Sew Oregon Shop Hop, traveling to 10 stores over three days. I thought I would give my impressions of each shop here, and report on our experience.

I actually began the tour June 25th — the first day of the tour — because I had a class at Cool Cottons that evening. But I’m going to save my review of Cool Cottons for the end of this post because that’s where we turned in our passports.

The idea is this:  at each shop you visit, you get your passport stamped and get a pattern and fabric to make a quilt block.  Each shop’s block includes a fabric selected by Sew Oregon.  The shop gets to decide what coordinating fabrics to use and how to put them together.  You decide what to do with them. If you visit enough shops, you could make a full size quilt.

Pioneer Quilts

So after picking up my mom at the train station, off we went.  We first headed to Pioneer Quilts in Damascus, a small town east of Portland. It occupies a fairly small space in a rather nondescript strip mall kind of space, but there’s a surprising amount of fabric and a lot of creativity on display inside. I think a lot of classes are offered in the room behind the cash register, where some beautiful quilts hang on the walls.

Cinnamon Ginger by Lori Allison

I especially admired a Cinnamon Ginger quilt made of gorgeous Kaffe Fassett fabrics (he might well be my favorite fabric designer). In this case, admiration led to a purchase of a kit of the pattern by Lori Allison and fabric so I could make my own (my mom thought it would be the perfect 60th birthday present for me, and she was right!)

It seemed Pioneer Quilts also had a lot of reproduction fabrics from pioneer days, as well as quite a few Christmas prints.  So its Sew Oregon block of a gift wrapped in a bow looked right at home.  The block was designed by Jolyn Buhl, teacher of several classes I’ve taken (she is amazing!)

Pioneer Quilts block

Making this block was my introduction to using freezer paper. I had no idea it really sticks to fabric when you iron it on–shiny side toward the fabric. Not much fun to remove after sewing, however

The instructions with this block were awesome! Foolproof! Really made what looks like a very complex block very simple to make. I can tell I need more practice before I grok the freezer paper thing, however!

Paradise Quilts

It was an easy matter to get from Damascus to Paradise Quilts in Sandy.  This shop is located in what looks like a small house. It’s quite tiny.  The shelves are pretty well packed, but it can get a bit crowded inside when more than a couple of people show up. The store seems to specialize in multiple shades of a color.

Paradise Quilts block

It’s block was very simple, a large center block with stips of other colors sew on the sides. Very straightforward, not very complicated or elaborate. Kind of like the shop. It doesn’t have a website.

Having finished the east part of the Portland area, we headed south on I-5.

A Common Thread

I’d seen this store before because it’s near the sleep lab I visited a few months ago. This shop is in what looks like a suburban office campus just off I-5 near King City.  It’s quite large, with an open spacious feeling, maybe because the ceilings in these spaces are so high.  Quite a lot of the space is devoted to selling sewing machines.

A Common Thread block

I saw a lot of fabric that is designed for craft type projects moms might do, like halloween costumes or other holiday decor.  I bet a lot of soccer moms shop here (if they sew).  One nice thing about this store was the bolts of coordinating fabric with the Sew Oregon feature fabric.  I picked up a few fat quarters of these, which came in very handy when I was figuring out what to do with my blocks.

A Common Thread’s block was uncommonly detailed. In fact, it was so complex that the directions took several pages (one page replaced another that had an error). In making this block, I encountered paper piecing for the first time.  (Paper piecing means you sew a piece of paper right onto your fabric, sewing along the dashed lines, then you cut along the solid lines and the pieces magically come out sewn together.) I thought it was pretty darned nifty! It really works! I’m definitely going to have to work on my paper tearing technique, because I got so enthusiastic I pulled out more than a few stitches when I was removing the paper.

Canby Quilts & Fabric (the link to the website wasn’t working when I tried it)

We hit the road again and made our way through Willamette Valley farmland to Canby, where the quilt store is located in the picturesque old part of town near the railroad tracks. This shop is stuffed, not only with fabric but books and patterns. I confess I felt a little overwhelmed by it all.

Canby Quilts & Fabric

I find when I get overwhelmed in a fabric store, I don’t buy much because I can’t see the forest for the trees. I don’t know where to start. I can’t step back far enough to see it at the right distance.  I also need good lighting to get my view on.

The block from this shop was very clever…but I’m not clever enough to understand the directions.  So I kind of faked it. As a result, my block was a little, oh, I don’t know, underwhelming I guess. It seems too small in the block of fabric they provided. Maybe I need to embellish it. Or something.

Let’s Quilt

We got directions from the Canby shop to Let’s Quilt in Oregon City but I somehow missed a turn or something because suddenly we were in unknown territory, heading into an orchard. Lucky for us, the Google maps app on my iPhone pinpointed our location and we quickly got back on track.

Let’s Quilt is big! It has a lot of beautiful fabric! I spent a lot of money! But along the way I learned something important about my shopping habits that I’m going to confess here for the benefit of the entrepreneurs out there. Call it Marie’s stimulus package.  And here it is:  apparently I really appreciate and fall for and buy packets of fabric (fat quarters or half yards) that have been cut and nicely tied together in a stack. Especially when they are amazing bright and bold colors and patterns.

Let's Quilt block

When I walk into my favorite fabric stores, I see whole shelves of fabric that I love. But I can’t buy the whole shelf. I feel too guilty to ask the proprieter to take down multiple bolts to cut off a fat quarter or so. So more often than not, I leave empty handed. But if said proprieter has already done that before I get there, maybe selecting 10 or so Kaffe Fassett fabrics in reds, oranges and green prints and arranges them in an attractive stack, I will walk in and think, “I must have that!”

For example, I’ve been wanting to buy an assortment of Kaffe Fassett’s shot cottons. But which ones? I have no idea. I don’t have a specific project in mind, I’m buying them on speculation. So I can’t decide… Let’s Quilt had a stack of them already cut into fat quarters. When I walked in and saw them, I could hear them say “Marie, over here. We’ve been waiting for you. We need you to take us home…”  And I happily did.

This shop had among the most complex websites of the shops (more on that below). However, the planning and care this shop has put into its fabric selection and website was surprisingly not in evidence in its quilt block. It was the simplest block of all, and these were the instructions:

(1) 6 1/2″ block center

(4) 2″ x 6 1/2″ sashing

(4) 2″ x 2″ corner stones

No kidding, that’s every word. Everything. Guess you’re just supposed to know.

Heart to Hand

Heart to Hand block

Oregon City has another quilt shop, but it’s a little hard to find because it is located in an industrial park. Kind of near the back. The owner points out that this no-frills location is quite affordable and she passes on the savings in overhead to her customers.  She was busy making more quilt blocks when we were there, as she’d had many more shop hoppers than she expected. Nevertheless, she welcomed us warmly and made us feel she had our hearts in her hand.

This shop’s block was a classic pattern, easy to make… no frills with very low overhead.

Hollyhill Quilt Shoppe and Marketplace

From an industrial park to an upscale shoppe and marketplace in the historic Willamette section of West Linn. Quite a leap! Wow, this place is big and it is decorated with a designer’s eye! It has many departments…there’s a civil war fabric zone, holiday and seasonal zones, home decorating, etc. etc., just a whole lot of stuff (stuffe?)

It would be easy to while away a day here looking through all the offerings. I can’t imagine how much this much inventory must cost! Yikes!  The shop was hopping, and there appeared to be a lot of buying going on.

Holly Hill Quilt Shoppe & Marketplace block

It has the most complete collection of Moda cake stacks I’ve seen anywhere! Which fit my weakness for pre-selected selections of fabric. The prices were better than I expected, seemed to be about the same as other places, despite its location in this affluent suburb.

Hollyhill’s block was stylish and sophisticated. It also has the most sophisticated website of all the shops, with online shopping featuring an interactive design wall.

The Pine Needle

The Pine Needle block

I was a little apprehensive about the Pine Needle, since I had already spent more than I planned and I always seem to be drawn to big purchases at this shop’s booth at NW Quilter’s Expo. In Lake Oswego (an even more affluent suburb than West Linn), this shop is in the older downtown section that looks more like a movie set than an actual city center.

When you walk into the shop, you are greeted by several quilts featuring very “today” fabric and patterns. The big and bold colors make me salivate.  I want to eat them!!

This is another shop that does a great job of offering pre-cut selections of fabric collections. I was quite impressed with their sale prices (e.g., 99 cents for fat quarters of very recent fabric!)

The quilt block was an attractive variation on a fairly traditional theme.

Quilted Corner

This shop is situated with several other gifts/crafts/collectibles shops in low

Quilted Corner block

buildings lining McLaughlin Blvd in Milwaukie.  The interior space is small but attractive. Several women were in the back running sewing machines, maybe in a class?

This shop had the most unusual block:  an appliqued Christmas tree ornament. I’m afraid the directions were over my head, so I just traced some lines on fabric and faked it. It turned out okay, but I’m not sure this is quite what they had in mind?!?

I found the prices at this store to be great!

Got some Michael Miller  fat quarters for $1.50 each (usual fat quarter prices are $2.50 – $2.75)

Cool Cottons

Cool Cottons on SE Hawthorne

For nearly all the shops I visited, the Shop Hop was the first time I had been in the store.  However, because Cool Cottons is literally feet from my home (our backyards almost touch!), I’ve been there any number of times.  I take classes there. I buy fabric there. I attend sewing groups there.

Now that I’ve done recon at 10 shops in the Portland metro area, I can say with certainty that Cool Cottons is my very very favorite. And here’s why:  although I can find something I like in every store (and, indeed, I made it a point to buy something in each store, even if just a couple of fat quarters), and sometimes entire departments that I like, there is no other store in this area where I would love to buy fabric from each and every bolt.  Seriously.  In Cool Cottons, it’s as if someone decided to make a fabric store just for me.

So while it’s not nearly as big as many stores (it’s located in the first floor of an old Portland house), there is nothing to skip past. Every bolt is from a favorite fabric designer of mine… every single one.  And many of the fabrics (e.g., those from Japan) I didn’t see in any other store.

Can you imagine how blessed I feel that Cool Cottons opened where it did????? At this point, I don’t think I could manage without them. Too scary to contemplate…

Now, if they start offering bundled samples of collections as I found at Let’s Quilt above for the reasons I mentioned, I will be in serious trouble.  Because I will buy them all. Seriously.

Cool Cottons block

Oh, I almost forgot.  Cool Cotton’s block was also a clever take on a rather traditional pattern… and since the feature fabric was one quite unlike the fabrics they carry, the complementary fabrics they chose were different from most.

Overview

Although my mom and I got pretty exhausted a couple of times while shop hopping, we had a great time.

I think this is a really terrific marketing idea. As I mentioned, I’d never been to most of the stores and wouldn’t have gone without this organized activity. I have to say, if everyone behaved as my mom and I did, it must have been great for business.  For example, I spent $593.18 that I would not have spent otherwise. I didn’t dare ask for my mom’s total, but she was close on my heels if she didn’t get past me!

There could be more quality control on the block patterns. They were all different sizes, which made putting them together more than a challenge! Some of the instructions were very clear and well documented. Others were not.  Those should be easy things to fix!

As the photos suggest, I already made up all my blocks.  I didn’t have enough to put into a traditional quilt, so I made a table runner I can use for a holiday decoration (the unquilted pieced top partially shown below stretched out on my cutting table).

Marie's 2009 Sew Oregon Shop Hop table runner

WSBG reviews The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

World’s Smallest Book Group thinks Sebastian Barry’s writing is beautiful. We were all enraptured by the words and how they went together. We love it when that happens!

This is the story of a woman’s life told through the diaries of two people, one written by the woman herself as she reaches 100, having spent several decades in a mental institution.  Along the way, it reveals much about the story of Ireland and its civil war…especially the role of the very powerful and corrupt Catholic Church that seems to have a hand in everything. As we know, the church took very dim view of women.  Tragically, this woman paid a very high price for that.

It’s really a sort of mystery…a psychiatrist is trying to figure out what put Roseanne into the institution as he tries to figure out where she should go when it closes down. Near the end of the book, we were in for a bit of a shock.  Well, Joyce and I were. Reba and Darcy were savvy enough to figure out the surprise before it was revealed.  But I was gobsmacked! Wow!

Joyce and I dearly loved the book.  Reba and Darcy weren’t quite so taken with the story, but we all agreed about the beauty of the writing.

If you like reading about the long long reach of injustice, you will enjoy this book.  I think it’s critically important to read stories like this… because these things happened to women.  And still do.  May we never forget or look the other way. I very highly recommend it.

Chapter 2: Asking Why

Asking Why

 

It is natural – and essential – to wonder why children are born with things like spina bifida.  There are two ways to ask the question.  When I first asked, “Why did this happen?” it was a question for science.  I initially turned to medical researchers and epidemiologists for answers.

Wondering why this was to be Blaine’s particular destiny, his karma, came later.

At first I just wanted to know why it happened at a cellular level.  What biological message directed the spine to stop growing.  What particular mechanism had gone awry.

I soon learned that researchers had decided that neural tube defects like spina bifida are partly genetic, because there is a higher incidence within families.  I discovered that once a mother has a child with spina bifida, her future children are more likely to have it as well.

But researchers had also observed a very puzzling geographic pattern.  Spina bifida occurs at much higher rates in some parts of the world, and at distinctly lower rates in others.

Some epidemiologists noticed that births of children with neural tube defects are not evenly spread through time.  Clusters of births – in both space and time – are frequently recorded.

I felt a certain irony when I discovered that my child had been born with something with such a fascinating geography.

My college and graduate degrees had been in geography, and while I was pregnant, I had been teaching geography at Portland State University.  Looking at how things are distributed through space has always fascinated me.  I think it is responsible for the “outside looking in” view I tend to adopt, and is even why I frequently try to imagine seeing the earth through the eyes of an alien.  One of my earliest memories is gazing awestruck at the deep and vast night sky that appeared through slices in the fir trees of southern Oregon, thinking how small and remote are both a child and her planet in a space that reaches so far.  As a 10-year-old living at the edge of the woods along the South Umpqua River, I had surveyed, and then mapped on butcher paper, the 200 or so acres that surrounded our house.

Through college, and especially while in graduate school, I had become accustomed to questionable looks and derisive comments when I revealed the subject of my major.  “There’s a Ph.D. in geography!” more than one person marveled, “I mean, after you learn all the states and capitals, what else is there to do?”  I tried, but didn’t always succeed, in using a lighthearted tone when I replied that we move on to memorizing county seats.

In college, while living in an inner city neighborhood in what was the second most populous metropolitan area in the country, I studied urban geography.  I returned to Oregon for graduate school, and immersed myself in cultural geography, studying how culture is spread through time and space, specializing in the geography of China.  I wanted to learn about a culture that was as different as could be from my own.  I selected China because at the time it was the only major region of the world where one could not purchase Coca-cola.

During and after leaving graduate school, I examined how and why humans have changed the landscapes we have inhabited.  I looked at vegetation patterns in Oregon, and had done a year-long study of trees immigrants had introduced into Oregon.  For several years I taught a very popular course on the geography of Portland.  In fact, I had begun writing a book about Portland’s environment, explaining how the natural world had been changed by the people who have lived here.

But the truth was, I had my own nagging doubts about devoting one’s life to studying geography.  I found myself wondering, “In the scheme of things, how much does this really matter?”  Although I could justify my intellectual curiosity in the subject, my life’s work needed a better reason for being.

While I was pregnant, I was invited to participate in a study that was trying to figure out why the rates of certain kinds of cancer were higher in some parts of Portland than others.  If we could solve this geographic puzzle, we might be able to figure out the cause of the disease, and eliminate it.  This is one way a geographer could save lives, I thought.  It meant I could keep doing geography, because it mattered after all.

And then my son was born with a hole in his back, and nobody knew why.  Even while I struggled to realize what had happened, and begin to understand it, I started asking questions.  Within a few days, I knew I had happened upon a startling geographic enigma.

One study found astonishingly high rates in southern Wales, and in Northern Ireland.  In the United States, proportionally more children are born with spina bifida on the east coast than the west.

For a time, people thought it might be caused by a fungus that grows on potatoes.  One researcher questioned a possible link with vegetables in the brassica family – including broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts – that contain goitrin.  My heart skipped several beats when I read that, because I remembered that shortly before I became pregnant, I had begun to get violently ill every time I ate broccoli, a vegetable that up until then had been my favorite.

When a large percentage of children with spina bifida were born to workers in tire factories in England, researchers questioned whether it was caused by a chemical added during the manufacturing process.

Several scientists had attempted to explore the causes of spina bifida.  When I read the studies, they seemed incomplete.  Either they had too little data, or the data was unreliable.  There were too many variables, and no way to isolate them.  The studies were retrospective, and since nobody knew exactly when exactly what went wrong, no one really knew what questions to ask and when to ask them.  It seemed to me all the researchers had given up too quickly.  Solving this riddle would require a massive amount of very carefully selected data.  It would be an enormous undertaking.  It could take a lifetime.

Clearly, I was the one to undertake this task.  I would combine the skills and training of a geographer, with the commitment and determination of a mother.  I understood that this was to be my destiny, my life’s work.  I did not shrink from my task, this was to be a crusade.

With Blaine snuggled in his pack, I made several trips to the Medical School Library at Oregon Health Sciences University.  I looked over the card catalog and medical indexes, and tracked down every relevant article I could find in the stacks.  I had to use a medical dictionary to understand some of them

First I needed to understand to what extent spina bifida was genetic, and to what extent it was not.  It couldn’t be entirely genetic, I reasoned, because there are such striking differences in the incidence of births over time.  The rate varies over decades, and is even higher during certain seasons of the year.  If it were merely genetic, wouldn’t the rate be constant?

Blaine was but three months old when I made an appointment to meet with the man who several had identified as Portland’s leading neonatal geneticist.  I spent hours developing a long list of questions to put to him, and hoped to convince him to help me undertake an investigation.

Finally, the day arrived I was to meet with Dr. Gerald Prescott at Oregon Health Science University’s spina bifida clinic.  Blaine was snuggled in his usual position in the baby carrier tied to my chest when we took an early bus downtown.  It was a partly overcast but pleasant autumn day, and we made the most of it, strolling along the sidewalks of the transit mall and surrounding blocks.  We sat for a while on a bench under the majestic elm trees that surround Portland’s downtown library, smiling at dozens of others who were also out enjoying the day.

I was rather amused, knowing that the people who smiled back at us were seeing us as typical mother and her child.  They couldn’t tell that Blaine was paralyzed.  And they didn’t begin to suspect they were looking at the mother who, because of the son who clung to her bosom, was at that moment preparing to take the first step along a path that would lead to a major medical breakthrough.

Soon both Blaine and I began to feel the ravenous hunger that can suddenly strike an infant and nursing mother, so we stepped into the Chinese restaurant across the street for a bite to eat.  Blaine settled in for his midday meal, and I ordered fried rice.  As I sipped tea, I reviewed the list of questions I had prepared for the geneticist.  I was especially curious about how much genetic information had been collected about families who had a child with spina bifida.  I wondered why no one had asked to look at my genes since Blaine was born.

The waitress delivered the fried rice, and I continued scrutinizing my notes as I began to eat.  I daydreamed about how a research study might be designed that would find the missing link, the key to this mysterious and elusive puzzle.

There has to be an answer, I vowed.  I reminded myself that we may not know what causes spina bifida only because no geographer has taken on the problem.  I looked down and saw that Blaine had fallen asleep at my breast.

Maybe what’s important is not where the child was born, I thought.  I cracked open the fortune cookie, and began to nibble on the crunchy shell.  Maybe we need to look at the place conception occurred.  Maybe it was something momentarily present in the environment when the sperm and egg united.  Or maybe it has to do with where the mothers spent their early lives, when their reproductive organs were forming.

Or maybe it’s not the mother at all.  I fingered the tiny slip of paper I had pulled from inside the cookie.  Maybe it’s something to do with the father’s background.

I glanced at my watch and noticed it was nearing time to catch the next bus up Marquam Hill to the clinic.  If the geneticist can help me understand what part of this puzzle is genetic, I thought, then I can discover what geographic factors might be involved.  First, I’ll have to figure out what data to collect.  And where I can collect it.  I straightened out the fortune and looked at the message printed on it.

Suddenly I felt as if I had received an electric shock, strong enough to lift my every hair from my skin.  Blaine awoke with a start.  I closed my eyes, shook my head, and looked at the fortune again.  Something slowly crawled all the way up my spine.

I looked down at Blaine and said the words aloud to him.  “Man can cure disease,” I read, “but not fate.”

Another not-disappointing trip to Cape Disappointment

We were more than a day late getting away due to international differences between American and German wiring. But after some frank and productive diplomacy, we were on our way.

Did we ever need a vacation?!? And not just to recover from the frantic rush to get ready for vacation. It’s been a year since just the two of us (and dogs) got away together.  Back to Cape Disappointment State Park we went, for the fifth (?) year.

One reason we like this place so much is watching Pippi and Poppi running free on the beach.  There’s also great flat bike riding and quite a lot of history and art on display.

"Free at last, free at last..."

"Thank god almighty, I'm free at last!"

"Look at that, we even got the old man running with us!"

Meanwhile, back at the campsite, we mostly sat around reading, watching the campfire and staring into space.  When we stepped back a bit, we saw a cozy little scene, both inside and out…

The weather was wonderful, basically just shirtsleeve weather, no wind, just perfect for lounging about…

And then we watched the moon rise over Toaster Moon… and be reflected in Toaster Moon.

And pronounced it the perfect moment of the trip.

WSBG reviews The Cave by Jose Saramago

Okay, I’ll just say it.  World’s Smallest Book Group LOVES Jose Saramago. And we totally LOVED this book!  What a master!! You should immediately go out and read it. I’m not kidding.  Right now. That’s okay, I’ll wait…

Oh, you’re back?  So we were right, huh? I KNEW you would love it too…

So the book is about a man in his mid-60s who has been a potter all his life. He has a little pottery studio at his home in the countryside outside a large city.  The city has a number of zones (all fairly grim) but the center of it all is The Center.  I imagined it as a Mall of America kind of place… everything is artificial and controlled and ordered and big brother is watching every move everyone makes. The son in law is a security guard at the Center and when he gets a promotion to residential guard, the family can move to the Center.  Much of the book describes the evolving status of the family’s economic circumstances and their consequences. 

The characters are so  interesting and real. We so loved the old man and his daughter.  And the dog

And the writing. Ahhhhh, it is so beautiful and satsifying.  It draws you in ever so gently, then carries you up and down along the little waves that carry water along a river, now up, then down just a little, then tipping slightly to the left, enough to notice but not enough to throw you over, it’s best if you let yourself be carried, trust that the words will take you where you need to go…

Let me show you what I mean, I’m going to just open to a random page and copy one random sentence so you can see for yourself:

Cipriano Algor shrugged as if so say that he wasn’t interested and said again that he was going to have a wash, but he did not move, he did not take the step that would carry him out of the kitchen, a debate was going on inside his head between two potters, one was arguing that it was our duty to behave naturally under all circumstances, that if someone is kind enough to bring us a cake covered with an embroidered napkin, it is only right and proper to ask whom one should thank for this unexpected generosity, and if, in reply, we are told to guess, it would look most suspicious if we pretended not to hear, these little games played in families and in society are not of great importance, no one is going to draw hasty conclusions if we guess correctly, mainly because the number of people who might give us a cake is never going to be that large, indeed often there might be only one, that, at least, is what one of the potters was saying, but the other replied that he was not prepared to play the part of fall guy in some silly circus game of riddles, that is was precisely because he did know the name of the person who had brought the cake that he would not say it, and also because the worst thing about conclusions, at lest in some cases, is not that they might occasionally be hasty, but that they are precisely that, conclusions.

The family does in fact end up moving to the Center. It is truly a horrifying place.  Then there is a cave discovered, and it changes everything.  You’ll see.

Yes, the cave is a reference to Plato’s cave.  Made me wish I remembered my college Humanities class better, I wrote a paper about Plato’s cave.  There are also echoes of Kafka in the places in the story.  And props to the translator: Margaret Jull Costa.

I will leave it at that. Except for this: Jose Saramago is a masterful writer and thinker. He totally deserved that Nobel Prize for Literature.  This is the third Saramago book we’ve read in book group (also read All the Names and Blindness). After discussing The Cave, we decided that WSBG will read a Saramago book every year forevermore.

I can’t wait!

Three girls on the Willamette

Me, my mom, sister Sarah

 

My mom just turned 80!  My brothers and sister and their families met up on the bank of the Willamette River in Eugene for lunch and cake to celebrate. I gave my mom the quilt she taught me how to make as a tribute to her.  There’s a picture of her opening it below.

That's son Blaine on the right and sister-in-law Tammie in back.

And then my new camera ran out of memory (pretty sneaky the way the card that comes with the camera has essentially no room on it!)  So I have no more illustrations…

 

But it was so awesome to celebrate the day with my mom and that she has made it to 80! She had surgery for colon cancer when she was 47, so for a while I worried that I wouldn’t have a mom left when I reached my present age.  So glad she made it!  She is not without health challenges, but she is awesome and not a day goes by without her adding stitches to another quilt. They are works of art!

Happy Birthday MOM!  And many more….