BOMs Away -- And Mold Away! (with some Dahlia thrown in)

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

Hi! Hopefully, things are going better at your house than they are here. We are living with what sounds like jet engines in our house since Monday - expected to be here until Tuesday, when I really REALLY hope they have done their job and go away!

A peek through the back door.
You CANNOT believe how noisy those blue machines are!!!

Last Sunday evening, Marissa came over for Father's Day, and when she was ready to leave, she wanted to look for a coat she hadn't taken with her before all the stay-home orders began and she quarantined with her boyfriend. 

We haven't touched the coat closet since the third week of February - Stay Home meant no coats needed, grocery stores wouldn't let us use our market bags that live in there, and the dojang's been closed, so no need for the sparring gear. Well, she opened the door, and an EXPLOSION of mold smell flew out into the house. 

Zero sign outside that a huge problem was developing

Whaaaat????!!   How the heck did that develop in such a short period of time?! Turns out the tub drain above the closet decided to leak. Thank goodness Marissa wanted to find her coat, or we may not have found the issue until late August!! As it was, we really lucked out, and the mold/moisture damage had not yet spread past the subfloor to the basement bedroom underneath. 

As it was, I CANNOT believe we didn't know that was happening, that simply keeping that door closed kept us from smelling the mold growing. Lots of different kinds, too. There were gorgeous bright yellow, a cool cheddar orange, but mostly blues and greens and grays. A couple colonies of straight-up black. The team leader said a whole lot of it looked like Penicillin. Cool. We're both allergic to it.  

So that's all torn up, been repaired by the plumber through the ceiling, and then all the closet, ceiling, an adjoining cupboard, and floor were ripped out by the mold mitigation crew, treated, and been "contained" with their specialty equipment doing their thing. 

This side also has a blue monster machine.

Then the mudroom is also sealed off from the rest of the house and has its own little blue monster going, as well. Everything was fumigated on that part of the containment, and yesterday the testing crew did their thing. Assuming the mitigation guys got everything and the tests show up negative on Tuesday, the equipment can be taken out so the rebuild crew can start their work. 

We're still supposed to keep that all sealed off from the rest of the house, but today we were allowed to use the washer/dryer. At least we didn't have to tote everything to a laundrymat. . . although, it would a lot quieter there. . .   

All the coats' shoulders were covered in hairy mold growth, and it was going down most of the arms. They'll all at a textile company's location that specializes in restoring clothing and furniture after mold infestation. Super cool, because the company came and got them and will bring them back! The two pair of snowboots we had in the closet, I just tossed. I'm not convinced they could be cleaned well enough that I'd want my feet in there, sweating for long periods. >Ewwwww<

Anyway - Quilt stuff!  

Do you remember the Dinner Plate Dahlia technique-of-the-month quilt tops that I did last year? This weekend I got a really great start on the quilting of Heather's.

You can see the Caducea that I trapunto'd onto the black petal tips. This quilt celebrates Heather's graduation from medical school. Last year. Yeah. It's getting "2019" quilted onto another spot in the dahlia, and then the big black corner arches are getting a DNA motif that Heather requested. It'll be fun!

Especially since I'm almost finished with the stabilizing task. Super finicky work on this quilt pattern - soooo much curved stitch-in-the-ditch. I finished all the white work for that today, and tomorrow I'll do the black stabilizing SID. Then the real fun begins, with the decorative quilting.  :)  I can't wait to get to that part. 

~*~*~

So, what about you? Have you been able to work on a BOM? 

Sure would love to see!

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up, 

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - A Little Reflection in the Water

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

How are you doing? We finally got full-on spring here for the past week. Everything is AMAZINGLY green. I've been taking long walks outside lately, often in the meadowland of our area (which we are lucky enough to live right on the edge, of, so I literally just have to step through the backyard to go walking in this:

^^^My absolute FAVORITE kind of day, right there!^^^

The changing colors of the different grasses and reeds mesmerize me.  :)  Those are different plant greens, not cloud shadows. But yes, the sky is that blue, and the meadows are that green right now. These untouched photos match real-life colors remarkably well. No oversaturation here!

The other day I saw some distant neighbors had put up a display of an old wagon they'd acquired, at the top of their driveway.  Cool! 

Of course, my second thought after, "Cool!" was that I should find a way to ask them if they would let me take quilt photos on it. . . 

I didn't feel like sewing much at all this weekend, so I only got part of the Month 2 work done on my Water Reflections BOM:

But, hey! All the Y-seams are out of the way now.  :)

My biopsies came back negative for cancer, which is WAY good, of course! But also means more diagnostics are underway.  ::sigh:: story of my medical life. . .  Ha!   (and more on that subject later, but for now I'm turning this linky party over to you guys!)

EDIT:  OK, Here is the scoop regarding that cancer screening, and since I bet I'm not the only one who didn't know this already, let this serve as a 
Public Service Announcement - 

If you're in official menopause (it's been a full year since your last cycle), you should not have spotting. Not any at all. If you have any - even just a tiny bit - you need to get a GYN appointment. They'll order ultrasounds (be prepared for how physically thorough those are), and they'll likely want to run some blood tests, and do typical pap exams and all. That's because, while there is a good chance that the spotting is from nothing other than hormones wigging out for who-knows-why, it's also the very first sign of several reproductive cancers. Not pain. Not nasty stuff. Just some plain old itty bit of spotting. And say you've got uterine cancer kicking that spotting off, if it's caught right then, it would be extremely rare for you not to be completely cured of the cancer with surgery.

But how many of us who are new-ish to menopause know that even a tiny bit of spotting is something that has to be taken very seriously?

My initial ultrasounds showed traits of concern, so I had to get some biopsies taken. Happily, those came back negative for cancer, but true to form for my body and medical tests, they don't provide any answer as to why my organs are having issues. So currently I'm in the next step of tests, which is a hormone challenge designed to - essentially - reboot your system. I have 5 more days of pills, then the behavior of my body in the following 2 weeks will tell us if that re-set put sense back to things, or if I get to start through the next phase of invasive diagnostics.

In any case, it'll either be all over in a couple of weeks, or if there is some super-slick cancer lurking somewhere crazy, it's so early that it doesn't freak me out.

So tuck that in your head, menopause ladies: Spotting of any degree is not good. Call for a GYN appointment.  :)

~*~*~

So, what about you? Have you been able to work on a BOM? 

Sure would love to see!

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up, 

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away ~Flimsy Alert for Thistlepods ~ and Wind in the Whiskers

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

Hello! Wow, it's gorgeous here today - hope you've got pretty weather, too.

 Hey, look!  I got Thistlepods all put together the other day!!

And it looks quite happy about it.  Heh!  ;D

~and~ Some of you may remember this UFO BOM project of mine:

Today I worked on my Wind in the Whiskers quilt

(a McKenna Ryan design)

I got all the kittens and daffodils fused onto this 35" block, but my body has jitters today, so I didn't get the 3D pieces for the butterflies edge-stitched and cut out.

If you look carefully, you can see the wing pieces fused onto the back-side layers of fabrics in this baggie. I found it is FAR easier to edge stitch them like this, and then cut them out, than it is to fuse both sides together, cut the wing out, then try to do pretty edge stitching on those small pieces. There will be four 3D butterflies added to the block.

Other than those critters for the kitten line-up, there remains one final block to prep the pieces and fuse them on. Then I can finish assembling the quilt top for a Flimsy finish there, too!

~*~*~

So, what about you? Have you been able to work on a BOM? 

Sure would love to see!

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up, 

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

BOMs Away - A Moment with Family

Welcome to the link-up for BOMs Away Mondays!

Where we share what we're doing on a BOM-type project 

so they don't stall out in UFO-land!

(Linky at the bottom.)

So sorry to be so late!  Our daughter and her man were here for a long weekend, so I didn't do any BOM work. 

Here are some pics, though, for a little eye candy.  :)  

Some of the deer that frequent our property stopped by for some birdseed and a nap on the knoll. This was a doe herd of younger gals, which looked small to Scott and I and huge to Devon and Cory, who are used to the  petite Florida white-tailed deer.

They never got to catch a glimpse of Bun, who lives under our deck and comes out for produce-tossings from kitchen scraps and birdseed dropped by the deer...of course he showed up shortly after they left:

Everything was so nice and green here after last week's freak snow. A shot of the meadow at the bottom of our back slope:

Hiking occurred, of course. 

Devon LOVES the mountains, and any boulder outcrop like this is absolutely irresistible to her.

And back at the house, "Who's fluffier?" contests between Cory's hair and our ragdoll cat, Isabeau. . .

. . .and our other daughter's dog, Mango.

And now all is quiet once more with just the two of us in-house again. Navarre enjoys all visitors, but he's taking the sudden quietude in stride and apparently awaiting a spa treatment - Ha!

Back to the matter of quilting: 

I've pulled a new old BOM project out and hope to have the next section ready to share for next week!

~*~*~

So, what about you? Have you been able to work on a BOM? 

Sure would love to see!

Kate over at Katie Mae Quilts has joined me in hosting this meet-up, 

and linking up from either end puts you on the party at both sides.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter