my week with harvey

the past 7 days were spent dealing with or after harvey.  there is much more to come and i am extremely grateful it wasn't worse for my family itself.  it was so widespread in our part of texas - my parents took on water, but got it under control and am now ripping out sheetrock.  my brother has roof damage and leaks.  too many friends are now putting their whole life on a street curb as they clear out 2-6 ft of water from inside their houses.

friday, aug 25...day 1 in the morning

saturday, aug 26... day 2 while we could still get our a little

day 2... the water had pushed rip rap to the other side of the road and broke barriers

day 2.... as harvey moves from rockport to houston, we got slammed by the dirty rainbands.

sunday, aug 26th...day 3.  sh*t is getting real.  just past midnight and water is ankle deep halfway up the drive

day 3.... 3:30am and the water rose to about 5 ft from my front door.  i'm told by others it rose more after i went in. it came within an inch from my back door.

day 3...this is what the exit for my house looked like at the freeway.  this is a 6 lane freeway with 2 land feeder roads in both directions.

day 3.... the neighborhoods are getting water rescued by boat.  my friend is in the one next door.

monday, aug 28... day 4.  we took in friends and their 3 cats the night before after they were rescued.  on this day, my husband, friend and their youngest son kayaked in to the house to remove floating carpet and the kickplates from the cabinets.  water was still 2 feet inside.

day 4.... this only shows major roads flooded, and some got worse as creeks and bayous rose.  i was sitting in an island and couldn't go anywhere

tuesday, aug 29... day 5.  started out that my husband and friend's husband walked to the house to float tubs out of valuables.  later, my ex brough his boat over to take them in and get more.

day 5... my son, loading up wet and dryish belongings to his dad's boat.  a complete stranger with a truck met them closer to the main road and brought two truckloads to my house.

day 5.... most of the salvagable contents of their house in my garage.

wednesday, aug 30...day 6.  the sun has come out as the storm shifted to beaumont.  i have friends there too.  but i got to go to work for a few hours.  this is usually a much smaller "lake" and you can see the tree tops sticking out.

day 6... where the water level still was at my friend's house.  she does not live along waterfront property.

day 6... another evacuee rescued.

day 6... her words:  "cheeseburgers....a moment of bliss in the midst of disaster.

day 6.... i helped them move back into their house last year in june after a few years stationed somewhere else.  now i helped move everything out.  wet.

day 6...amazingly, the wood floors didn't even buckle.  but they will.

my heart is broken for the people i know and the people i do not know.  i was lucky but panicked that i would not be.  we worked hard to save the house when water was about to rush in, but some could not do the same.  we will rebuild and we will persevere.  

a milestone week!

what a week so far....the total eclipse (which in the houston area, we had about 70-ish% coverage) on monday AND this guy....

this adorable kid has turned into an awesome young man, who started high school on monday!  their school all got to watch the eclipse with glasses that NASA donated to their school district.  i cannot believe he has grown up so much - about to be 15 years old and has grown 9 inches in the past year.

then our A/C died.  at 9pm, it was still 90 degrees outside...  thankfully, the repair guy came out before lunch yesterday and got it fixed.  replaced the capacitor and topped off the freon, so when i got home, it was cool again.  

last night, i finished ironing the #goarmy quilt top, pieced the backing and basted it.  

still debating on the color thread to quilt it with.  i have red, variagated red and variagated blue, but i'd like a red/white/blue combo most likely.  so a trip to the store looks to be in my very near future.  there are 4 welding caps started and i need to finish the curtains (grrr) and get those out of my house as well.  THEN i can get back to working on my happy pill quilt and a dress or two for me.  

and now, back to the daily grind in the office.

a welding cap model of sorts....

one of the guys who has ordered a few special order welding caps sent this photo...

it wasn't what was expecting, but my hubby knew why it was so funny before i ever saw it (they work together).  this makes me smile every time.  just thought i'd share.  

a #goarmy kind of quilt

a friend of mine has tasked me with making a quilt for a friend of hers as a thank you gift for many things that person has done for her over the years.  my friend, miss A, wanted a quilt to represent the friend's son, who is in the army.  

the first task was finding the army fabric.  originally, miss A mentioned she wanted something similar to the navy quilt her cousin made her that has huge navy seal blocks.  there wasn't any army fabric in a huge print... BUT, i did find this one and she loved it:

step one complete.  on to the pattern... some days the pattern is the inspiration and other days it's the fabric, right?  well, i searched around for a good lap quilt that i *hoped* would highlight the army print nicely.  while looking around at the moda bake shop, i stumbled across the north star quilt and fell in love.  thankfully, so did miss A!

now it's the time to pull fabrics to make up the rest of the quilt.  i'm using a variety of white-on-white prints instead of a solid white to make it a little more feminine.  a few reds, a few blues, some old script (and oop) pledge of allegiance fabric and hmm.... then i remembered...

he's also an eagle scout from before my son crossed over from pack to troop.  i have scout fabric!  let's combine that all together!

DH and the redhead are both out of town, so i have time to myself to quilt and do whatever i want after work.  i'm supposed to be doing some curtains for DH's friend, but those can't be finished until DH is back anyways.  on to the quilt and then welding caps and the curtain.  maybe one day i'll get to a dress, skirt or something wearable for me and keep working on my happy pill bed quilt some more.

the plan is to have the top pieced together this week, then do some other work and come back to quilting.  i've got a few kidney stones kicking around in my right kidney (again) and i do a bit at a time while i'm not terribly uncomfortable.  we'll see what my dr has in store for me later this afternoon.

revealing.... all anew!

the original idea for "all anew" came about in september of last year.  and once i figured out what i wanted, it sat for a while.  i had lots of other things happening.  but then the new year came and i knew i had to start working on it.

but that even had a few snags to the plan.

once she was officially started, piecing went well.

magritte cat approved!

then quilting became the problem with tension issues with the old machine.  and finally.... she was finished, but i couldn't show you.  until today!!!

the 10th triennial for the women of the ELCA started earlier this week with the convention and the gathering portion began yesterday in minnesota.  they posed a challenge, open to women of the ELCA churches only, to create quilts using black & white plus one color only to represent the theme "all anew."

handquilted clouds detail

from the beginning, i knew i wanted an aqua or turquoise blue.  and i knew i wanted my quilt to be represented by water.  water and the sea renews our spirit.  brings life to the world.  sustains plants, animals and humans.  as this is a challenge for our lutheran church synod, water can also symbolize God's help, salvation and eternal life, and spiritual cleansing.

i quilted each wave section completely different than the next.  portions are handquilted, purposefully left imperfect as we are all unique and imperfect beings, yet together we make up something beautiful and perfect in God's eyes.

it's been out of my house a few months now, but i am still quite taken with it.  i've made a couple wallhanging quilts over the years - one sent off to navy safe harbor (originally hung in their office in the pentagon and now in the navy yard) and one never fully quilted but should be.  i want to hang this somewhere in my home.  now to figure out where.

swedish success and happy pill progress

after my trusty brother sewing machine lost tension capabilities for the second time in less than a month after returning from the repair shop, DH decided it was time for an upgrade.  he got me a lovely computerized fancy-schmancy husqvarna that i am still learning to use.  the most frustrating part it seemed was the lack of INCHES on my throat plate.  

i searched the book with all the feet attachment and they had one with inches and metric, but only a single hole for straight line stitching.  sigh.  but on tuesday, i had the decorative stitching class and lo and behold!  a zig zag throat plate with inch markings!  this was not at the store the last 4 times i had looked... 

i instantly bought that little sucker.  and it was the only one in the store.  mine!  all mine!  i still wish the 1/4 inch mark was more obvious, but i'll suffer with the foot instead.

new plate installed and i got back to work on "happy pill" piecing.

the colors are so bright and happy.  i cannot wait to see it together.  i've got this batch pressed, but not trimmed yet into neat 6 1/2 in blocks.  i pressed while i took A/C breaks from doing this:

my beloved red door is red no more.  :(  

first coat finished, strange wasp sprayed (and hopefully dead) and it's curing in the south texas heat.  i'll try to get the second coat on tonight if the weather cooperates after dinner.  the redhead mentioned as the contractors left that the red needed to be brighter because it was now too dark with the beige walls.  sadly, i agreed.  from the sidewalk, it got lost.  so, it was either find a brighter red or surprise DH with a blue door, which was wanting.  not sure he wanted this particular shade of blue, but redhead and i picked it out to do while DH was out of town working again.

that's all for now.  lots happening slowly in the house, but nothing in stages for pics.  

happy pill!!

my DH thinks we need a new quilt for our bed.  in ways, i agree.  i love and adore the one i made 5 years ago during a time i needed the calm.  but now, i need something a little different that i can have for the main quilt, yet alternate with my peaceful low volume every so often.

meet "happy pill."

what you're looking at above is 208 pieces of brightly colored curved sections, plus 208 light and dark grey curved outer curved sections.  join these with solid squares of happy colors and you'll have my new bed quilt.  and yes, it's going to take a while. 

as of last night, i had 35 grey/color curved blocks pieced and pressed.  i need to trim them down to 6 1/2 inches still.  and then pin the rest.  the blocks had to move aside for a couple welding cap orders that i need to fulfill first.  then comes an army motif quilt for a friend and some curtains for another friend.  maybe i'll finally get my extension table for my new sewing machine that i'm attempting to learn all of it's quirks so i can practice FMQ too.