quilting bees and stinging bees

This is long. Get your coffee and put your calls on hold.

First and foremost I am a crafting fool this week. Ok, technically last week, but this week too. Just you wait and see. For most of the last week and weekend, I just couldn't bear to deal with the general populus, yet I struggled with the need to be productive so I decided I would just do so from the comfort of my own home. Things were cleaned. Things were sorted and piled and donated to charity. Things were washed. and so it went.

So back to the crafting for a moment: I have a bunch of half finished jobs lying around and a pile of material and yarn up to my eyeballs and I had no doubt I could find something to occupy myself. Something that was free, required no additional materials and would ever so slightly shrink my pile of "things I thought I wanted to make until I started trying to make them." It would be an extension on the cleaning/clutter reducing frenzy which has been broiling for months but really culminated when I got back from AK. Y'all I gave some shit AWAY! I may or may not admit that this was motivated by a Niecy Nash clean this house marathon into which I was sucked the night I returned home from Boston.

Anyhoo, this weekend I decided I was tired of the cleaning and should really do something more fun and more result-y so I went back and revisited "the quilt". Remember the quilt? Months ago I went gangbuster in a way that surprised myself and mildly horrified HN to produce the perfect quilt to match my room. I worked in the wall color, the trim color, the green from the plants color and SPARKLES! (aside: i love sparkles! more on that later) It was going to be tops, this quilt: literally and figuratively... Then warm weather came, and I hit the next step phase, which involved laying out the giant-ness of the quilt and assembling the sandwich and I was overwhelmed. At "the Phase of Trying Something New" is when a lot of my projects typically hit the dead zone. I just decide "I'll put it off over here while I have a think on what to do" and the next thing you know I'm donating scraps to charity. Not that that was going to happen with "the quilt" but you take the point.

"the quilt" in it's infancy. In looking at the quilt on my bed today, I notice that although they have changed, there are still a book and a bottle of seltzer water next to my bed.

So let's backtrack a little. Saturday while I was sewing/mowing/cleaning anything I could get my grubby little hands on, I began to feel a bit sorry for the dog. She doesn't share my craft bent, and while she got plenty of exercise when I walked her that night, she spent a good deal of the day bored and sighing and giving me the stinkeye. So yesterday morning I decided since I was going to make an earnest effort to finish the quilt that I should run her in the morning too and get her all tuckered out so I could quilt guilt free while she slept it off. With this in mind we packed up at around 7am and headed out to HN's place of employment, around which there is a large expanse of woods that we can and do make frequent use of.

All was well. It was early, sunny, warm and I had coffee and a plan. I also had a stick, which I was throwing so mia perra could get even more exercise, plus just to have some good old fashioned fun. Then a funny thing happened: I threw the stick, dog went roving to get it, then dog began turning in circles, sitting and standing quickly and just generally looking like she was losing her mind. I could see little black things on her butt so I thought she might have jumped into a thorn thicket or something. Never being one to look before I leap (and not intending to start now), I think I will gallantly jump in and save her. There was a log in the way so I had to take a running leap. (note: I am sure I have a thought process at times like these, but I am never quite able to put my finger on what was going on in there when I make decisions like "take a running leap into the thorn thicket with the dog to save the dog" Admittedly in retrospect it doesn't seem that smart)

Running leap taken, and Kerry now airborne for the briefest of moments, a couple of things occur to me:

1)I am going to land in the thorn thicket.
2)Crap
3)There is no thorn thicket. But there are thorns on the dog. DOES NOT COMPUTE.
4)The thorns are moving.
5)CRAP

As I hit the ground I'm a little relieved that there is no thorn thicket, but I'm still 100% sure there are thorns on the dog. My circuit board was frying, I was just very confused, but thoughts went a little bit like this: How did my dog get covered with bugs? oh not bug, bees. Well I'll just wipe them off of her. How come there are so many bees? Why are there more bees? I'll wipe those off too. OUCH. So many bees! oh, right: WE HAVE JUMPED ON A YELLOWJACKET GROUND HIVE.

It becomes clear to me we're going to have to run for it. I push the dog. She has no interest in doing anything but addressing the sharp pains in her ass and nether regions, belly, armpit, foot. She won't go. I'm starting to lose it, so I kicked her in the ass and gave her a rather decisive push in the general direction of "out of the woods".

and we ran.
and the bees ran with us.

Yellowjackets are mean! and tenacious. We ran for a solid (scary) 10 minutes before the buzzing in my ears died down to where I felt ok enough to stop and handle the dog, who was by now REALLY VERY UNHAPPY and also BEING EATEN ALIVE. I got a couple of sticks and made chopsticky like bee extractors and was horrified to see the size of the stingers that the little bastards come out with. I pulled the remaining fuckers out of her and we bee-lined (no pun intended) for the car, as I was not only freaking out about becoming 1 of the 3 people a year killed by swarming bees, but a little alarmed as to how many stings a 55lb animal can take and really be ok. It turns out, more than however many she got, but there will be much inflammation and even more stinkeye. I gave dog as much Benadryl as I felt comfortable, and iced the worst parts for a minute, although I stopped when she made clear she did not like that game. She went off into doggy snooze land, dreaming I'm sure about poking me all over with hot needles, then kicking me in the ass and making run like that. And I went back to quilting.

and I quilted all day. and I was way more excited than it seems grown woman should be about a quilt. Roughly every 10 minutes I stopped what i was doing to either lay it out or go put it on my bed and just be happy about it. This as you can imagine adds time to the whole endeavor. Still, I put in a solid effort and just about got it done to the point where I could use it on my bed last night when my bobbin ran out. Normally not a showstopper, but for some reason when I went to wind a new one, my sewing machine went "SPROING" and the bobbin, it no spins.

Have I ever told you my mother calls me Calamity Jane?
I'm also changing the blog title back, if you even noticed it was different. Apparently I am a cautionary tale, and to pretend otherwise simply tempts fate.

and with that I'm off to work for a bit. Then I'm going to buy a bobbin winder, because I will not be stopped. Will post quilt pics (complete with the whole room redesign that such a work of art demands) and artist's representation of something later. There have been many things worth rendering this week.