imperfections

I"m still working on my quilt. I'm about a little over half way finished with the machine quilting. I have done all the seams going across the quilt, and now I am doing all the ones going up and down. A seam on each side of the 'ditch", where pieces come together.



I have kept working for another week from the beginning of this writing and now I am half way done sewing on the binding. I have sewn it on, but then I have to fold it around to the front of the quilt and sew it down all the way around, finishing the edge and encasing all the raw edges.

Y'all.

It's been a thing.

All along the way,  all I could think about was the next project. What do I want to make next? Maybe the cat block or one called the two step. I couldn't decide.

This week I've really been pushing to get this project across the finish line. I am excited but also beginning to be burned out a little bit. This is the largest sewing project I have ever taken on (hmm except for maybe all the lined curtains in my house lo a many years ago when I felt young and fresh and crawling around on the floor measuring and pinning was no big woop).

Well friends...I think I am old. I'm ready to get my dining room back and not have decor shoved aside so I can pile sewing boxes and piles of do-dads everywhere. I'm over it.

And another thing is that the struggle is real putting on a binding. It kicked my tail when I made the class projects but I wondered if it was because the angles were wonky and there weren't any true actual 90* corners. But I am on the struggle bus again with this piece that has regular corners and it is really annoying. Three of the corners are perfect or close to perfect and the fourth one had to be messed with and picked out and resewn a smidge just to make it okay.

so. bummed.

But ya know what, it really is ok. I'm not entering it into any quilt fairs. I'm just cuddling up with it on the couch. And after it gets washed, it will be super crinkly and yummy anyway.

I hate that one corner that doesn't measure up to what I wanted it to be..which is far below what a pro would call perfect. My perfect. But I will smile and know I did my best for my first real piece and love it forever and like it for always.



My grandmother pieced this sailboat quilt,  probably when she was younger than I am now.  It was just a pieced top at the time of her passing and my aunt quilted it for me and gave it to me as a wedding gift. Do you want to know what I noticed recently? An imperfection! I have had this quilt since 1991 and noticed that one boat has upside down sails a few weeks ago.

And so my little quilt with a less than perfect mitered corner (and quite a few other little hiccups) will be just fine.

from scrappy to happy #anactualquilt

I decided shortly after I finished both of my table runners that I really did want to make a quilt.

Like really.

I have been watching youtube videos etc and had made a few decisions. I wanted something pretty 'scrappy'. I wanted to be able to make a block and if I messed it up, no big deal. Because it would just 'go' and not be all matchy matchy. I felt like that gave me permission to mess up and not be utterly stressed out about it.

Because y'all...quilt fabric is pricy! I am so used to the fabric at Hobby Lobby and it always being on sale etc and this is whole new experience.

Side note...quilt fabric is pretty much the Cadillac of cotton sewing fabric..more fibers per inch etc which makes for a much better end product. Now you know...because I sure didn't.

I watched a video by Jenny Doan...who I am obsessed with, by the way..she is just such a cute lady and she makes it look like you really can do it. Well I saw a video on 'tiny houses' and I was hooked. I grabbed some scraps and tried to make one.




Success! I loved it. But I didn't have a ton of scraps laying around so I invested in some. I bought some cute fat quarters and a few grab bags of scraps at some local quilt shops. And commenced to making a few more houses.

And then it hit me...I have to make way over 100 of these for a throw sized quilt.

*insert the bug eyed emoji here*

And I know myself well enough that it was going to turn into a negative experience and I didn't want that. Because I really did/do want a quilt that I made myself..that I can snuggle up on the couch with.

So! Change of plans.

I remembered a pattern I had pinned months ago..'in case' I ever made a quilt. It's a SIMPLE four patch with a larger square next to it and that is repeated for the entire quilt. An easy beginner pattern, which the tiny houses were not. I went back to my favorite of the three shops and asked for help and showed them my fabric pieces. And then looked around and found the cutest fabric that coordinated pretty well with it, for the big squares.



I got started making squares.





(that is how the back of a perfect four patch looks..with a tiny four patch in the middle that distributes the bulk very well)



And before long, my top was finished. Verrrry scrappy. It's not a pretty quilt, by all the fancy standards, but its beautiful to me because I made it. :)

I really was wishing I could have sent my top up a flag pole or something...LOOKIE AT WHAT I DID ALL BY MYSELF. I'm such a dork but I was so happy I made it 'that far', because honestly I wasn't sure if I could do it.

But I did. :)

I went back to the cute little shop and found backing fabric that is in the same line as my yellow squares..and its got little squares all over it which to me seemed perfect for my humble little scrappy only a 'mother' could love, quilt.




Isn't it cuuuute? And the red peaking out on the right side, is the binding. It matches my red small squares perfectly.

I got my back ready, and then pin basted it and started quilting on my almost 30 year old BASIC Kenmore sewing machine (with a walking foot). I am straight line quilting on both sides of my seams etc so it will be a square double line grid all over. Again..simple.



I sent that photo to a friend and she said it looked like my quilt was trying to eat my sewing machine. Pretty accurate. It was overwhelming at first and I just wasn't sure it would even be possible for me to quilt on my 'regular' sewing machine. But I found a you tube video showing how to do it and it really hasn't been that bad. Tedious but not hard. I am working from the center out and have quilted half of it, going across. I have the other half and then both halves going up and down.

It's a marathon, not a sprint.



(blue lines drawn on seams so I can keep track of where to sew)

I think it's going to turn out cute and I am falling more and more in love with my little ugly duckling quilt.

touching my toe into the waters #quilting

I have always been amazed by quilts. I have a baby quilt that was made for me by my grandmother. I used it and even carried it on car trips etc until it started to fray and now it lives on my quilt rack. I have a few that were my mother's and I was given a quilt my grandmother pieced and my aunt quilted as a wedding present.

I love quilts. The patterns.  Stars, stripes, bear claws,  squares, triangles..and a bunch of other shapes I don't know the names of. The colors. Every color in the rainbow.  The fabrics. Everything from quilting fabric to well, feed sacks and old clothes, way back when. Quilting has come a long way. 

But quilts are intimidating. I always looked at other's creations with all the heart eyes..and a little bit of jealousy if I am just being honest.

I recently noticed that a local sewing machine and quilt shop has beginner quilting classes...what are the odds? LOL So I decided to sign up. I had to wait a couple of weeks from when I signed up to actually go to my class and I was so antsy and excited.

My first class was last Tuesday and my second class was day before yesterday. Next Tuesday is the last class. (we will come on another day to bind our quilt after we complete the quilting on our own).
The teacher is the sweetest and so is her helper. There are six of us in the class and four of us are left handed. I am used to being the minority, so that has been kind of funny.

The project we are all doing is a table runner. A very doable first project with lots of opportunity to learn different blocks and some beginner technique.

My first cuts and pieces. This was created on our first night.




This is the background fabric...it has bluebonnets on it. Those are the state flower of Texas and they have my heart big time.


And this is my almost completed top. I could not believe we made so much progress in two evenings.


I am so proud of it. I hope I don't get stuck and unable to finish. So far it has gone together so well and the teacher is so encouraging that it makes me feel like I really can do it. :)

I knew that week to week I would forget what we learned so I grabbed some fabric at Hobby Lobby to make another one so I could reinforce it all in my mind. I am just as excited about that one as the official class one. And if it actually turns out, it will be a gift so that is fun.

Such pretty colors!



Squares done but I can't remember how to square them up. So I will carry them to class next week and let her show me again. And then I can sew on the sashing. And do whatever else we learn next week.




I don't see me becoming a super fancy quilter but I am excited to perhaps create a few simple projects that are useful and pretty. So fun. Even an old dog like me can maybe learn a new trick. :)

perspective

There has been a lot going on lately at Chateau Notes. Life happens. And sometimes it is messy and hard. (we are fine...just normal stuff)

Recently we purchased new floors. Buy buy Bye-bye carpet and hello looks like wood vinyl planks. (Cali Bamboo LVP). I chose Cali because they are a pretty clean product with ultra low VOCs and that is important to me. But what an ordeal!

We spent about two weeks moving as much as we could to our dining room and kitchen..and even our extra bathtub..stack stack stack. It was crazy. But our installer called us dream clients because we did so much of the work for him. :) They ripped out all the old carpet..dust dust dust flying everywhere. GROSS. And they got busy installing our new floors. It took three days. We stayed two nights in a hotel.

And then we came home to a dusty dirty post reno MESS. But I couldn't get the floors looking clean. Major struggle bus. I think I figured out my problem today and used a different cleaner and they seem much prettier today..but its cloudy and dark out and I need a sunny day to know for sure.

But this whole thing along with a few other things going on, had me flaring with my breathing problems and just generally annoyed at life. Sometimes the everyday funk just gets me down, ya know?

I was scrolling and generally feeling sorry for myself when I stumbled upon a video from a local news personality. I knew she had breast cancer just three years ago. And then had a handful of 'state of the art' surgeries to rebuild her chest. Her latest video was announcing that she had metastatic breast cancer.  Her clock is ticking.

Y'all.

I had to stop and pray. And thank God that I feel great and can do things like left heavy furniture and boxes and that I'm dealing with everyday life..and not dealing with mortality.

It's hard to get flustered about smudges on floors when I could be fighting even harder for my life than I currently do.

So today I mopped my floors..again...with a new perspective. And Hope that goes beyond a better floor cleaner. 

Romans 15:13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (italics mine)

on contentment

A few years back we thought about selling our house. But we never found something we liked. And then I got sick. So yeah..that was that.

Fast forward some years and we are thinking about it again. We need a little more space. Our daughter, while grown, isn't going anywhere. And we could use a tad more space.

I think about what I want style wise and I get overwhelmed. I look at my own house and begin to dream about all the ways I could change it.

But to what?

I started following a lot of home decor instagrammers. It just kinda happened. I followed Layla at The Lettered Cottage forever as a blogger and then followed her on insta. I guess she was the 'gateway drug' to many more decor accounts. But the funny thing is, their houses are all but identical. I'm not saying they are exactly alike, because they certainly aren't. But they have some serious similarities. And then I look around at my house, not looking a lick like any of them.

And I get restless.

My walls aren't gray. My cabinets aren't painted white. I don't have dark hardwood floors. I don't have hardwood floors at all. I don't have white slip covers. I don't have neutral, muted, soothing tones all over my house. And it was really getting to me. I kept thinking about going for 'the fixer upper look'.

But then I remembered what I have been saying for a long time about Fixer Upper...even though I totally adore Chip and Joanna, there is no way I could live in a black and white house. I need more color than a basket of apples or a vase of flowers. That is not a pop of color in my world.

So I am learning to look around my house and be content with I see. To be thankful for our house. It isn't photo ready or all grays and whites. It isn't 'all of the things', at all. But it is us. It has 'friendly yellow'..yes thats the actual color name..walls. And I love them. I have a dark red chenille couch..and I love it. I have simple antiques and things I have collected over time that mean so much to me. I made the curtains in my living areas..deep red with flowers and red, yellow, green and blue checks too. And I love those too.

I am so thankful that I have taken a pause from drooling over all things insta and looked around my own house and realized I don't need gray walls and white cabinets and wood floors and all of the things, for my house to be 'just so'.

It already is. Because it's mine and it was lovingly curated over many years. And I don't plan on changing it anytime soon. And that's good.

Be content today, friends. :)

wild man's happy ending

Boys Will Be Boys

Dudley the kitty was (happy ending..just hold on) pretty rowdy. As in completely crazy. I have several friends with kitties and I was forever asking them if any cat they knew of ever (fill in the blank) and the answer was always a resounding NO. He didn't like to get in boxes, but he liked to eat them. He ripped my soft sided sauna and swung from its rafters like a cat on the flying trapeze. Freaked the hubs out when that happened. He got on top of my kitchen cabinet..he wasn't always a great hop, so he was scratching to pieces one of the cabinet doors. Fun. Times.  He was addicted to food so he started waking me up for breakfast around 4:30am. Ya know what I don't want to do at 4:30am? Be awaked by a cat. Ya know what annoys a cat at 4:30am...a 'mom' that's not dosing up the vittles. He hung from the window toppers in our bedroom one night. And knocked every component off our little tv table beside our dresser...vcr, roku box etc..on the reg. He was ruining all the rugs in the whole house. And every afghan too. I could not keep him off the counters when I cooked which was very hard. And I was terrified he was going to jump in the oven. I'm not even kidding. The weirdest thing he did though was lose his ever loving mind for about 20-30 minutes every day...that is when he would do super charged things like jump on top of the frig..from the floor. It was insane. He would run full force into WALLS.  I can't even describe all the things he did. Just too many.

Attack Cat

The thing that was the most disturbing was the attacks. Often times when I was sitting up in bed, he would get this wild look on his face and I had about a half a second to protect myself. Which is hard to do sitting up in bed. I was attacked on the face and head more than once. I called my vet's office in tears several times just asking what am I going to do with this cat???? I wanted him put down because honestly he scared the cr@p out of me. But she would never go there. I get it. But it left me high and dry. I could not surrender him again to the city because he would have just been stuck in a tiny cage again..and he was berserk and crazy from the last time that happened. So it furthered my feelings of being trapped by the situation.

Cuddly Dudley

He was super friendly and cuddly a lot of the time. He demanded a lot of affection at certain times..especially when he was hungry. The cuddly times tugged at my heart. I loved that part and I tried to love him. But the cuddly feelings were always cut short by the remembrance of times when I was cleaning up my face from the latest attack.

Just Plodding Along...UNTIL

So things just plodded along. I felt trapped. Hubs HATED him. And daughter wanted to love him because he was the resident kitty and well..that was enough for her. She got swatted at a couple of timed but never walked away with the wounds I suffered though, thankfully. One day I made a random private comment on an instagram story about the horrors of declawing. She asked me a bunch of questions and I told her we were going to have to consider it if we could not get a handle on his behaviors. I don't think she heard anything from me but that I considered declaw. In a heartbeat she told me that she was going to have a lady that runs a very prominent account for rescue contact me. I said that I recognized her name and that I knew there was no way she had time to talk to me. Within a few seconds, I had a private message from her. We talked extensively and she actually agreed to take Dudley and work with him etc..if I could get him to VEGAS. I texted the husband who was traveling on a business trip at the time. He was all for it and was looking up airfares. Like I said..he hated the cat. Over the course of couple days, the lady in Vegas got me in contact with a more local rescue after telling her my story. And very long story short, I talked to the local (well... 40 miles or so) lady and she said she had an open spot in her rescue if I could get him to her the very next day. So suddenly the plan went from 'in a few weeks we may fly to Vegas' to 'tomorrow I am driving Dudley to the big city'. I have to say I jumped at the chance for him but it tugged at my heart also. Even after everything we had been through. But overall I was happy he might get a chance with someone else.

The Big City

I texted the hubs about the whole 'I can take him tomorrow and we don't have to go to Vegas'. He was all for it. So the Saturday before Thanksgiving, I was to take him.  I woke up early and he got the wild eyed look that I knew all too well. I sat up in bed with my hands out but he tore me up anyway. I was angry that he did it but it certainly made the day easier. I was growing more and more scared of him. So was my daughter. I had told the Vegas lady and the rescue lady about his propensities and i really don't think they heard me. The day I took him, she 'tested him' and told me she didn't think he looked like he would just do something unprovoked. I said ok and signed the papers and walked out. I have wondered since that time if he just did not like me. Or if maybe I did things that rubbed him the wrong way..but I don't know what that would be. Or like I said..maybe our personalities just weren't right, ya know? I knew I never wanted him in a cage because as I told her, he would go nuts. Thankfully Vegas lady talked to the rescue here and he was going to stay with a very experienced foster mom. I have trolled the rescue on FB and about a month or so ago, he was adopted by a single lady and her bf. I am glad there are no kids. And I'm glad its somebody who knows more of what they are getting into as far as his extreme energy. I hope he ends up with a kitty sibling eventually. I think he would like that. I have obviously not reached out to the owner or the rescue etc but I stalked a bit hoping to see if things went well for him. I hope this home is his happily ever after.

Instagram Haters

I unfollowed a billion cat accounts that I had followed. I just needed a break from cats. I was pretty messed up by everything that happened with D.  One day I decided to try to follow the Vegas lady again...I really loved her and appreciated all she had done for us. I figured out she had blocked me. So she could post pics of D and talk about his urgent need for a home...and drag me through the mud as his owner in the process. And then all her minions chimed in as well...some saying pretty nasty things about me. It really hurt me. I was just trying to save a cat from a shelter and I did the best I could.

Sometimes I think about writing Vegas lady and telling her how hurt I was by her post..but at the end of the day its not about me..and she doesn't even know me so she can't be my judge anyway. It's about the cat. And everybody involved did right by the cat and I'm forever grateful..even to Vegas lady.

So that's the story. Pretty crazy, huh?! Sometimes people ask me if we will ever have another cat. Honestly I really don't know. If so, not for a while. We really need a break.

the cat we adopted twice

This has been in my drafts folder since May of last year.  This is the beginning of the story about us adopting a nightmare kitty. In my next post, I will let you know how the 'story' resolved. Hold on to your hats..its gonna be a bumpy ride.

********
There is a new kitty boy in our lives. It's been a rocky start. Ok, sometimes it just feels rocky all the time.

I had been scouring the Petfinder app starting about two weeks after Annabelle passed. Too soon..I know (now). But anyway, this one "little" cat stood out to me every time I searched. I secretly hoped one day I would search and not find him because I had this bizarre draw to  him and I hoped someone else would get him. I know that sounds weird. It was weird. So one day I went to the shelter and he was there. His shelter name was Lance. And he was so so affectionate. And for some reason the people at the shelter thought he had been declawed on all four. And yet he didn't seem to have a mean bone in his body. So I felt like he was too good to be true and called the hubby and finally decided to bring him home.

Immediately upon getting him home we realized he did indeed have claws. I wasn't quite ready for that. So I called the shelter and they said I could bring him back. It was late and they were closing so I planned to take him back immediately the very next morning. He stayed in our bathroom. I encouraged our daughter not to get too attached to him because 'he was leaving'. I would go in and take care of him..and cry..because he was super cute and showed a lot of affection. Hubs thought he was 'too big'. So his fate was sealed. I took him back.

And I continued to think about him for the next two and a half weeks. The girl and I talked a lot about him. Hubs and I talked about him. In different lights of course. ; ) But I finally talked the hubs into trying again with him.

So one day I told the girl that after lunch we were "going to get him". She knew exactly what I meant. Y'all...he was an absolute terror. He was beyond crazy! It stressed me out so much that long before the week's end, we planned on returning him. But I never felt settled about the matter so it never happened. I also took him to the vet because we wanted to know just how much this tub of bricks weighed, because he felt like he weighed almost 20 pounds. 8.3. Whaaa?! He knows how to make himself feel heavy. Very weird. The vet told us that she expected him to weigh about 10  full grown. So the 'he is too big' argument went out the window...AB weighed 15. He currently weighs 10.5. ha. I think he's going to weigh a little more still.

He is extremely active. And playful. He was estimated to be about 8-9 months when we got him in May. One day he got so "playful" that he kind of went off the deep end and attacked me. I got two gashes in my ear! So we planned once again to send him back. Or better yet...I know..terrible thing to say..euthanize him because he's such a horrible and scary animal. Before you say anything..I know! But that never happened. I read a lot of books and talked to a lady I met on insta who is a behaviorist.  And we are taking more careful note of his affect before he goes nuts. And he is learning through some discipline not to go bonkers on me. (He did it today and he had not done it in quite a while. But it was less severe and he stopped much more readily). He's an active teenaged boy.

To be fair, he is quite affectionate..when he is hungry. Which is in the mornings before I get up. So I get some cuddle and purr time early in the morning. Sometimes he goes under the covers and suckles on my pajamas and purrs his brains out while I pet him. It's sweet..but kinda gross. He is super smart. He plays fetch. And he is very athletic. He can jump from our kitchen counter to on top of the upper cabinets. He can also jump from the floor TO THE TOP OF THE REFRIGERATOR. No joke. It was crazy. He has only done that once..during one of his Tasmanian devil moments when he's just super charged. We are hoping he grows out the kitten stage sometime before we lose our marbles.

And that's how we adopted the same cat twice. We almost named him Ditto. But instead we named him Dudley.