Mammo Wednesday and Fibery Tuesday

Oooh today is my mammo day.  I approach the day with trepidation, since I had a tumor removed when I was 15. With all of the cancer issues cropping up in our family, this is necessary.  My younger sister deals with cysts and lumps all the time, and had repeated surgeries to keep her healthy and safe and alive!

I go regularly, but always seem to get called back for a second scanning due to the scar tissue.  No matter how many times I tell them of the previous surgery, and they mark the spots with an arrow, there always seems to be some new radiologist reading the scans. Erring on the side of caution, they insist on calling me back for a second imaging. Of course, I go.  I breathe a HUGE sigh of relief when the results come back as okay, just old scar tissue.

So that is my public service announcement for today.  

Go get a mammo! 

Yesterday was cold and damp in Wisconsin.  We had a cloudy day with no sunshine at all. I opted to stay inside and work on weaving some rugs.  I am doing these in a neutral theme of beiges, creams and browns.  I cut up recycled fabric, sew into strips and then weave them up into rugs.  This is one of my favorite patterns, "random stripes" I call it.

I weave my rugs on my Newcomb Studio Rug Loom. I have two of these looms, identical to each other that I love the way they work.  I have had so many looms over the years, but these are my choice for doing rugs.

My Etsy store ( http://kareninthewoods.etsy.com/ ) where I sell my rugs and other things, recently offered a new shadowing program called "Pattern".  This feature will update my own separate standalone www.kareninthewoods.com website with my current inventory.  So anytime I add something, sell something, or change info on the Etsy store, it will change it automatically on my own website. It has a shopping cart too. But the most exciting part is that there is also a spot that I can add a video clip of myself weaving and explaining how I weave rugs.  So ---- my brain is thinking I might do up a video clip one of these days.  

As it is, I have videotaped myself in two different instructional DVD's that I sell online.  One is the complicated process of warping up a sectional loom for weaving.  The other is how to run those frustrating, futzy, finicky antique sockknitting machines!   And it even ends up with a finished sock!

I self-produced and self-duplicate those DVDS and sell those on my etsy site too.  I would think that making a little video clip of myself weaving for the website should be a breeze. Maybe if I have a Good Hair Day and a clean studio, I can set up my video camera and make a clip of my weaving process.


After lunch, I decided to go upstairs to my sewing room and work on my newest quilt.  I don't make quilts to sell, because you can never recover enough financially to cover your basic materials and time per hour put into making a quilt.  This is one that will go out on my front porch.  

It started like this: 

It has now evolved into this so far....

(those are numbered stickers in the centers to keep them in proper order) 

It will be queen sized when completed.

All of the blocks are stitched, 

sandwiched with batting and backing, 

and free-motion quilted.

 I am now joining them with "sashing" 

My last blog talked about the 20 year old bird house which Steve built for me, that came back into our possession in a roundabout way.  I decided to clean it up and coat it with some clear poly.  For now.  

But first I had to vacuum out the "innards"   ---  Steve had never made a clean-out trap door on this birdhouse so I had to stick in the shop vac hose and hope for the best.  I had no idea it was packed that full inside!  It took quite a while of alternating the vac hose nozzle, along with stick-poking and pliers-pulling out the contents.  This birdhouse accumulated a LOT of stuff over the last 20 years!  

Besides the traditional grass used in nest building, I found fishing line, Xmas decor tinsel, birthday balloon ribbons, clumps of dog hair, pieces of plastic bags, and amazingly parts of children's toys like Legos and Barbie shoes and puzzle pieces!  I think those might have been from my own kids back in the 1990's because they were at the bottom of the birdhouse????   

I can just about visualize them playing in the backyard and stuffing small things in the birdhouse hole because it was within reach of the during those years.  Silly kids! 

One other thing I want to clear up was in the last blog, I might have left the impression that Steve had painted the birdhouse prior to giving it to me.  Nope... he hates painting.  He only built it in the shape and form of my home I owned while we were dating. It was up to me to paint it he said.  LOL So I was the one that painted it 20 years ago.  Now that it has a good sealed surface, I might just spruce it up with new paint again.  

One of my readers, Linda Sand, comment was: "It looks well weathered--just like we are. But, I have some newer body parts and new clothes so why shouldn't it get the same treatment? Oh, dear. I don't think I helped, did I?"

I think it is going to remain indoors and protected the rest of it's lifetime.  Perhaps out in my front porch.  Soooo I might just spruce it up with new paint afterall.  It's the structure that is the memory of Steve's thoughtfulness, not the paint job so much... because that was from me.

For now I will look at it and enjoy it.  

And smile.  

Well, off to get ready for the mammo!