Finding fabric fluff in the fireplace

It has been a while since I really cleaned house. The kind of cleaning when you would just die if someone stopped over during the process, but you wish so much someone would drop in after it all looks perfect. I used to do this often, but energy levels being what they are, it has been too long.

The Romanian language bookshelf got revamped. From all the books we have purchased, by the sheer amount of money invested, we should be doing better. I don't think there is a book about the subject that we don't own. Anyway, we can see all the materials better now.

There was quilt and fabric crud everywhere. The picture on my Etsy shop is from when I was cutting out the fabric for Judy's quilt. That is where I have done all my cutting and snipping, cross legged on the floor in front of the fireplace. I am sick of all the mess. I am tired of missing the mat and cutting the rug. (And I mean actually slicing the rug with the rotary cutter, I am not talking about dancing!)

So I have made some new house rules. I will no longer do any fabric cutting in the living room. My goal is to set something up in the garage, and do marathon cutting sessions instead of one quilt at a time. I'll sew in the sewing/office/dog/junk room and do the rag quilt snipping outside. Our living room is for talking, reading and studying. The kitchen table is for eating. It usually looks like the picture in my older post, the one with the teenagers at the table. When we were in English, we probably had one of the cleanest houses. That's not true anymore. Moldovans and Romanians are so clean, it is inspiring. And they do nothing except eat at their kitchen tables, what a concept!

Squared Up is so messed up

Not a great week for my business, ha! if you can call it that. The quilt that I sold to the woman in Texas with the baby boutique, well it got lost in the mail. It had a delivery confirmation, but that doesn't do much good when they don't know where it is!
If I give her the money back, then we are out the money. So I just mailed her another quilt, the Petra quilt, which means she will immediately receive the first one, if Murphy's Law is involved.
I'm working on another quilt, lots of flannel, jeans and cotton shirts. Ugh, it looks like I was drunk, seriously inebriated. Crooked sewing, uneven Xs, what is happening? Can you get a SUI  (Sewing Under the Influence) with a blood alcohol content of zero?
So I told myself I am taking a break from this. Time to put it all away for a time and let it gather some dust like the rest of the house. Then my neighbor gave me a huge box of gorgeous vintage chenille. Wow, it is so funky cool. Hmm, what can I make with it? Time to fire up the sewing machine...

My cheese grater brain

I have tackled some things in my life that were hard. Learning Auto CAD was a doozy for me, and then the classes I took in Solids Modeling and machine design stretched my brain even more. Through literal tears, I managed to get through it and get good grades. Learning most other subjects has been quite easy for me, if I put in the time, I get the rewards.

But learning languages has been my weak point. I have dabbled in, through the years:
Spanish - middle school
French - high school
Sign Language - in my early 20's
Russian - before Kiev in 1993
Chinese - in Davis
German - before our various trips there
German is the one language I went the furthest with. Probably from the exposure, the crispness of the pronunciation, the way it felt most like English.

So now here we are in a Romanian congregation for over 2 years, with association in the group 2 years before that. Granted, we have had some scary life events with Ernst that put some halts to my learning for times, but it has been a while now. How I feel about my language learning is like this:

In my brain, it is as if there is a large sheet of thick metal, running vertically from ear to ear. When Romanian comes in my brain, from my eyes or my ears, it hits this wall of metal, crashes and falls to the language graveyard at the bottom, where good Romanian goes to die! The few phrases that are laying near death at the bottom can only be brought to life while I am alone. When I need to use them, such as in talking to a live person, they play dead.

But in the past couple weeks, there seems to be a few holes poking their way into the metal plate. I am hopeful. I am beginning to hear more phrases, not just words. Grammar is beginning to make sense, a little at a time. There is a website that rates how hard a language is to learn. There are 5 cacti possible in difficulty. Romanian gets 4 cacti out of 5, (Spanish gets 2, even though they are both Latin based). So maybe the cacti are punching holes in the metal plate.  If my abilities are compared to a kitchen tool, I will wish to become a cheese grater rather than a sponge. It is a little late in the game to hope to be a language sponge.

Here are some reasons why I can't give up.

the clothes

the goodness

the dancing

the teenagers

the kids

the attitude

the sweetness

the joy

more kids

the history

more dancing

the friendships

the beauty of character

My first Moldovan baby shower

Today I'll attend my first Moldovan baby shower. Somehow I doubt they will play the silly games, like who has the poopy diaper made from a tissue? Or how many jelly beans in the baby bottle? Probably there will be lots of food and maybe some dancing?
The way they do bridal showers is wonderful. They pool their money, and a few of them go to Ross and buy a bunch of stuff: sheets, blankets, pans, dishes, glasses. Then they just bring it all to the shower, not wrapped and say a little something about each item before giving it to the bride. Like "here are the dishes you will use to serve us food when we come to your house."  No cards, no wrapping paper, no pressure!

 So I think I'll just put a ribbon around this thing and bring it.

The Elizabeta Quilt

Named after Mama Elizabeta, the matriarch of the Tuchakov family,  this one is ready to list on Etsy. I had to do reconstructive surgery to repair a big mistake I made, and it would be on the heaviest quilt I ever made. What was I thinking, some of this fabric could recover a horse saddle!

Now I just need some record freezing weather all across the country to put people in the mood for a heavy wintery quilt.

Molly being Molly

Why I keep Molly away from my quilt materials.

This is a little something I made to keep her busy. It lasted a few minutes.

with her "indestructible" toy

faking being regal

A quilt for Lilia's baby

Once I get the house cleaned up, this is the next quilt I'll sew. Lilia is having a girl in March, although she barely looks pregnant. Her baby shower is Sunday. We are all waiting anxiously for them to decide on a name, they are choosing so very carefully.

Moldovans have about 20 names they seem to draw from. I know 3 Natashas, 3 Larissas, 2 Innas who are first cousins, and so many Elenas. So Lilia is at least trying to be creative. We just know it will end in A, it must, to fit Romanian grammar.

Janet's Quilt, the one that started it all

Two years ago, Joanne and I were talking about her yearly visit to California, and she mentioned she also wanted to visit the Washingtons in Wisconsin. Wink and Janet are a couple we met 30 years ago when Joanne lived in Fon du Lac.
We decided to rendezvous there in Spring 2009, and what fun we had. Usually our vacations to see each other mean that one of us is still in regular life, with work and other responsibilities. This was great to both be on vacation, and being spoiled by the Washingtons no less. Plus I got bumped on my flight, used that to go visit Connecticut last December, and got bumped from that flight too! A very lucrative vacation.

I just fell in love with Janet's rag quilts. So all three of us worked on this one. I was hooked, and became a quilt monster! I have never been a sewer. I used to crochet, but this was much more creative. Janet taught me to use recycled material, relax about it and not to be afraid to add some punchy fabric.

I got back to California, bought a sewing machine and the rest is a blur of batting and thread all over the house. It took me 47 years to discover a hobby. Thanks Janet for getting me started.

Pioneers 2011

Yes, that is me with my eyes closed, the other pictures were blurry. Here are all our pioneers as of January 2011, apparently more in the works. I understood very little from the meeting, still struggling with the language. I did understand one part, about not gossiping about others. The Romanian word for gossip is "BARF" which is hilarious to me. So no barfing!
They are all family, and very united, don't think barfing is a problem, but then again, if they don't want me to understand at all what they are saying, they start speaking in Russian. When the girls are pooling their resources to give me gas money, they speak in Russian! These tri-lingual people, can I just be bi-lingual, please? Would it be so much to ask?

Mom's Quilt

Photographed in Mom's beach themed sun room, this is the quilt I made second. It was a crazy big one, 100 squares, the last one I'll make that big.  The pillow was made to match some of the squares.

It was so fun to make, especially since she wasn't expecting it. I would cringe now to look at the corners, but I was still in the learning process. Wish I could see it more often, meaning I wish I could visit more and hang out with Mom and Jo, talking and drinking coffee in their Danbury sun room.