The Shoplifters Saga continues...

Yeah. Well the second soandso (I'll call him Thing 2) came in the store on friday. double grrrr. First his 2 spotters came in. They weren't regulars and they had never been in a comic book store before, didn't know what they were looking for...a bad sign...I was going to ask him to leave his bag at the counter... I didn't trust him, then Thing 2 came in, right away I asked if I could help him and right away he was hostile."why did you ask me that for? there are other people here too" (????) Anyway I knew it was Thing 2, he too has tattoos all over him, I said "I want you to leave my store you've been asked to stay away." " No I haven't why do I have to leave?" "Are you soandso?" "no that's not me" (didn't fall for it this time, could he have been speaking to Thing 1?) "you match the description, please leave." "This is f****** g b******t", he says as he's leaving" don't be surprised if this place burns down" (???) " is that a threat?" and then he asks the other guys to leave with him (so they were together, it's the old distract the sales clerk while one of the other ones steals the stuff, grrrrrrrrrr.) I called the police (not 911) at around noon and didn't see an officer until 5:30 (!) Apparently a very busy day for them. Thing 1 and Thing 2 of course were in the police computers, 30 year old ne'er-do-wells, drug and alcohol dependancy, last known address: the men's mission...oh surprise. The officer said he would go there and see if they're there and serve them with a tresspassing ticket, but they probably won't be still there, which is probably why they didn't know they were banned from the store in the first place, the police can't find them. We have to catch them in the act...but of course the police say don't confront them, just call 911, they'd be gone by then.

So the good news is: no alarms went off in the middle of the night and our store is still standing!

Real Life Interferes with Quilting

Well the Spike quilt is all basted and ready to be quilted. I am thinking about trying out Lazy Gal's free fan method of hand quilting on this. I am really intrigued by it. I like the idea of using colourful embroidery floss. It seems right somehow. I don't have a fancy sewing machine to do machine quilting, so if I have to hand quilt this might suit me. But then I was on Fibermania and Melody's ode to the ginko tree had me weeping, it was so beautiful to me. The colours! She machine quilted around the leaves but hand quilted these simple circles and it was quite nice...so now I'm thinking maybe less is more.

I must stare at the quilt some more. I am at that point where I just look at it and look at it trying to imagine what it would look like finished. Then I go to bed and think about it some more. I am not a plunge right in kind of person. I look before I leap, I think about it too much!!!aaak!

You know when I can't make a decision, it's because I've had a bad day at work. I had to confront some punk kid and tell him to leave my store. He's a known thief, he's stolen from us and other stores and has been banned from the store. But he had the bloody nerve to come back. grrrrr. He thinks because he shaved his beard we wouldn't recognize him, but, you know, if you're going to be a thief perhaps tattooing your body might not be such a good idea! They call them identifying characteristics for a reason. The first time we talked to the police about them (there was a pair of them, then) all we had to do was describe the tattoos and the police gave us their names. So I went up to punk kid and asked is your name so and so or so and so and he said yeah I'm so and so ( is this who they were thinking when they made up the Darwin awards?) Well I said I am asking you to leave my store and not come back and then he has the nerve to ask why? I told him, but does he think we're stupid? It's a good thing my anger is stronger than my fear when it comes to confronting these individuals, because I'm sure his rap sheet includes assault, but after I was shaking. Grrr I hate shoplifters!

OK, I've vented. I feel a little better. It's time to watch some Lost (we're re-watching season 2) and relax :)

Suske as inspiration!

Don't mess with me!

Big girl sleeping.

Here you can see she does have bits of orange on her tummy.

I actually was a busy little beaver and I finished the top for the "Suske" quilt, again without embellishments (it still needs some whiskers). This is the Morning Mews pattern from McKenna Ryan. (see link in sidebar, to compare)

This is the first time I've done this kind of applique or even made someone else's design. I usually steal parts of patterns, very rarely do I make one complete from pattern. Having said that, I just fell in love with the pattern when I saw it, but of course had to change "Dora" to "Suske" and of course my colours are different, but pretty close I guess. Suske is a mostly black with bits of orange tortoiseshell, so I thought that particular batik caught her essence.

I found all the cutting pieces a bit tiresome, as well as arranging and pressing them a little difficult, but I muddled through. The steam and seam was interesting too, you actually draw on the fusible part and if you don't cut inside the line some of those lines can show through along the edges.It didn't happen too often. I think once I quilt it, they'll disappear. That's of course the next question, how am I going to quilt that?

Spike Quilt Update

Here is the almost finished Spike Quilt top; it just needs embellishment...like pupils, whiskers etc.

It actually turned out better than I expected.

Brain Freeze!

Holy brain freeze, Batman! We just had our first LFQG meeting of the year! It was great, I needed that. I just had a crappy day at work and it was so nice to plunge into quiltness! But what an overload of inspiration. Not only did we have our usual show and tell (what great works ladies and gent! :) Our speaker, Brenda Miller, presented her trunk show. I think I OD'd on quilts...is that even possible? I think I was a little too tired! Afterwards, I felt like I could never make anything as good as any I had seen.

I have been searching the net looking for other blogs to read and I am coming across this blog ring thing. It looks like the best way to get comments to your blog is to join one, but they seem a little elitist. It's nice that they have rules of conduct but some are almost intimidating, but I did find some blogs I will continue to keep my eye on... I even went as far as commenting on one....ha my first post, one must take the plunge some time. So encouraged, I even commented on the blog of my local newspaper. Ha ha...there's no stopping me now!

Good news! My cousin, Marjon, and my aunt from Holland will be visiting the family for a week in late October. I am very excited! this is her second visit here. I will be dragging her to the LFQG Harvest of Quilts - Quilt Show 2006. And don't worry I'll be posting plenty of photos of the quilts I am submitting.

About the last 2 photos I posted: I was looking through my computer files of my quilt photos and I discovered there were not that many. I thought this was strange because I take photos of all my projects. But then I realized that most were taken before I owned a digital camera (yeah I know, there was a time when we used to develop photographs...so long ago) and many my mom took with her camera (which is so much better than mine) and I don't have them in my computer. The 2 photos I did find were of baby quilts I made for 2 other cousins in Holland. They are sisters and both were adopting babies from other countries at around the same time. Linda and Dick adopted Alissa from China, and for them I made the Butterfly quilt from Quiltmaker magazine. Monique and Peter adopted Jesse from the Dominican Republic. I made him the Kite quilt from a Fons and Porter magazine. See photos, previous post.

Here is the quilt I made for Jesse.

Baby Quilts

Here is the butterfly quilt I made for Alissa.

Back from Vacation!

Sorry I haven't posted for awhile. My husband and I were staying at a friend's cottage on Oxtongue Lake, near Algonquin Park. It was beautiful, peaceful and very relaxing!

We went one day into Huntsville and I stopped into Quilted Dreams, where I met Sue Chinn for the first time. My friend actually took up my bed quilt to have it machine quilted by Sue. She did an amazing job! Kudos to Sue! So it was nice to meet her face to face. She has a photo collage of all the quilts she's quilted, and mine was there too! While I was there I picked up a new pattern by Mckenna Ryan, "Dora", one of the Morning Mews series. www.pineneedles.com With apologies, I think I might turn "Dora" into "Suske", if I can find the right fabrics.

When I got home I received my London Friendship Quilters Guild newsletter. It's time to start a new year at the guild! I wrote an article for the newsletter about quilt blogs. We're having a quilt show October 27 & 28 at the Rowntree Memorial Church in London. I have a few quilts going in for the first time. I am kind of excited. Also I have news that my cousin from Holland will be visiting for a week around that time, so I hope she can see my stuff in the show as well.