Warning against Ladies Workout Express

To: National Fitness Financial Systems
PO Box 497
Layton, UT 84041-0497

Subject: Cancellation of Membership


I received a dunning notice for payment of $62.91 as a cancellation fee for this account. Over and above the fact that this is unfair, since my home is moving to Europe and I have no where else to live in the US once this transfer takes place, you did not have the courtesy to send me a bill but referred the issue directly to a collection agency!

What kind of people are you? I thought people in Utah were LDS, Christian people who treated others fairly.

We are protecting YOU from terrorism by working in the US Embassy. Our job (and yes, I work for the government when we are overseas) is directly related to finding terrorists plotting against the American people.

I have posted a warning against Ladies Workout Express on my Facebook account. I will also post the dunning letter I received and this letter on my blog, a popular publication to which many, many people subscribe.


Susan E. Haftel

Wonkie Widers, Take Three or Four

What was I thinking? I posted the picture of a crooked, lop-sided mess a couple of days ago. Publishing my failures is NOT me and I have recanted. Gone is the original article and here's the story.

I took Pat Sloan's crooked log cabin workshop on February 15 and produced a bunch of blocks. Then, I complained on her Facebook page about having taken another workshop that yielded another Unfinished Object. Of course Pat challenged me to finish the project.

Now, you have to know Pat. She can be VERY persuasive (she has the energy of a case of Red Bull and the memory of, well, there is no metaphor for her memory). So I've spent every waking minute upgrading the project and posting/reposting tweaked versions.

The top is finished (see it?) and needs to be quilted. Today's question is: How do I quilt it in keeping with the skills and talent of the OCD quilters I've fallen in with? I have no patience for quilting; I have no talent for choosing the proper pattern; I cannot make my machine stitch

evenly even with my fancy stitch regulator.

I thought I was safe with Pat. I WAS WRONG!

Are YOU my Valentine?

This week's snow event left me exactly where I wanted to be: at home in my messy, messy studio making Valentines.

I found a print of Japanese lady portraits at Jo-Ann's that reminds me of ATCs. I mounted the fabric on Timtex, cut each portrait out, finished the edges, and made an effort to use up some of that bling I'm storing. The featured card was quilted, painted, couched, beaded (via glue), and more (that's when I added the tassels). I finished 15 Valentines and now have to contemplate who is worthy enough to receive such original art.

A couple of weeks ago Mike (husband and employee of the Foreign Service) was offered his last overseas assignment and it was made official last week. We will be leaving for three years in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July. Mike is excited about the Jewish community there and I expect him to start growing pay’ahs next month. I, however, will still not convert since it's a sin for Humanists to take up any other religion. And then there’s the shetl thing...

Housing is furnished (Every house gets the same furniture inventory. We will take a few items to make it work for us such as my entire studio) and is supposedly comfortable. There is an APO in Helsinki and mail is shipped down by truck twice a week. I will be supplementing our local shopping via the Internet, or vice-versa. I’ve read other things in the post report but have learned to take those with a grain of salt, or less, since the people who write those things have no idea what’s really important. Tell me, please, where are the quilt shops? (Thought: AMBER!!! There will be a quilt with amber!)

We do not want to rent out our paid-off house (too many problems with irresponsible tenants and with moving our Chinese antiques that would most likely end up as piles of 200 hundred-year-old kindling) but realize leaving it vacant has just as many problems. We have invited a Foreign Service officer posted to DC to be our house-sitter and are hoping this works out for all of us. If it doesn’t, expect a flare!

In the meantime, I am stocking up on items that will be horribly expensive in Europe. This does not include a specific effort to collect art supplies since I will not be curbing my impulse buying at crafts stores. My legitimate shopping for household essentials is creating the kind of pre-packout disaster that only State Dept. employees can fully understand. In spite of the fact that there is no where to put this stuff, I’m enjoying the cash therapy and can’t wait for my next paycheck to add to the chaos.

Inspiration

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." --Jack London

What do I usually do to club inspiration? I journal and blog: morning pages are my best source of complex ideas. I list: free-association shows me what's on my mind and gives me some concrete examples to work with. I meditate: sitting still and in the moment can be beneficial as well. I have a white noise machine that's supposed to generate productive brain waves. I must use that more often. I wish I would be comfortable doodling and sketching. Perhaps I should just do it and see what happens.

I'm going through a tough patch right now and can't settle down: lots of stress, lots of unwelcome distractions. My head feels like it's filled with mashed potatoes; my stomach is on the churn cycle. I haven't slept for a long time. It's very peculiar then that I'm getting ideas without the quiet that I usually need. Maybe my angst is my kiva and the resulting visions will be award-winning projects.

Today I will turn off the world and live without the stress and distractions. We'll see what bubbles to the surface.

Mono Printing on Gel

Self-victimization is a sad thing. Need somebody for a presentation on anything remotely related to quilting? Just whisper in my direction. It won't matter if I'm an expert: I KNOW can fake it (having memorized the 260 arts and craft books in my library and having given up many decades ago planning lessons for my day job). When reality sets in, I will then beat myself up over not actually being an expert on a subject I've volunteered to speak on for 45 minutes. But I'll appear for free (operative work volunteer) and ya gets what ya pays for.

For example, when my friend Jean said she needed a few speakers to fill in her programs schedule for the year, I volunteered to demo mono-printing for the fine ladies of HQU. I don't know much about it, actually, but I've been in audiences where the speaker knows less about her subject than I do about smearing paint on muslin. Still, I should actually know something about the process.

To that end, I bought Rayna Gilman's book (a legitimate reason to buy a book!) and her DVD (belt and suspenders--just in case I forget how to read directions and interpret the diagrams) and have practiced most of the techniques therein.

The fabric is BORING and wants some rubberstamping and detailing here and there. Once I have tweaked the fabric to my satisfaction, I'll be able to speak, smear, doodle and stamp for 30 minutes.

Year's End: Answering the Call

Cyndi Souder waxed rhetorical in her latest blog (http://www.moonlightingquilts.com/): why do we feel the need to count our accomplishments as well as account for our actions over the past year? Most of us don't have to deal with the breast-beating that can go on during Yom Kippur, and I, having only 1.75 breasts left, am neither going in for the beating nor for the fasting on New Year's Day. However, there's been history made and we need to learn from it lest we repeat our mistakes, right? Talk about pain!

My biggest quilt-related mistake and resulting emotional pain was answering a colleague when she confronted and accused me of selfishly making a cancer victim on our faculty a get-well quilt. Not only did I have the temerity to make the quilt, I also had nerve to ask faculty members help make blocks and then sign the quilt with their wishes for our friend's recovery. To this day I don't understand what that colleague's point was, especially since she had been included in the process, and I know I should have walked on. There will be other quilts if needed, but there will never be another reply to such a bizarre "accusation." I hereby resolve to smile, nod, walk on.

On-going mistakes: I cannot leave an interesting craft book in the store. I have books on all the varieties of quilts and the skills needed to make them (of course), collage, journals, altered books, book making (not gambling, the actual making of books), art dolls, surface design, embellishment, jewelry making, machine embroidery. I pulled enough books yesterday to donate to my quilt guilds so that I have only 260 left and now they fit on my shelves. Cool. A library is a wonderful thing.

Not necessarily. I actually memorize these books. I can't remember my sister's birthday (born on my 10th), but I can remember many trivial techniques so well that I'm often in the middle of using one before I realize what I'm doing. Ask me the best way to do something and I'll reply with a title and/or an author that will help you.

What's so bad about this? It's expensive. On the oft chance that I may ever want to use a particular technique, I scour the universe for all the supplies that might be needed. I spent three weeks last spring finding 1" acrylic disks and solvent ink to make 3-D embellishments for a fabric journal I may make someday. (Fabric Art Journals by Pam Sussman, page 47--took me all of 30 seconds to get my hands on the right book and find the page I needed for that piece of documentation.) I have cabinets, closets, shelves, boxes full of art "supplies" for any number of projects that have caught my eye. My kitchen should be so well stocked! I hereby resolve to use more stuff than I buy. What do I do with the finished projects?

NO PROBLEM! I never finish anything. Mistake Number Three. Why is closure so difficult for me? Fear of failure or fear of losing a good friend? It's like this: I never finished reading All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren because the man is a poet. I never, ever want to stop reading that kind of prose. Also, I don't want the protagonist to lose the girl. If I finish the book, he loses the girl and I lose a friend. If I finish a project, I no longer have that which has given me so much angst/pleasure and I lose a friend. After a LONG time, I just this week finished Ghosts of Jerusalem (see below). Sewing that label was very difficult because now the quilt is no longer my baby. It belongs to the world.

So, what have I accomplished this year? I've amassed volumes of knowledge, learned a bunch of skills, produced a few decent quilts, and entered two in a show. What do I resolve? Use the knowledge (and the supplies), work harder on the production end, finish that which is worth finishing, and finally get my work "out there."

Oh, and SMILE, NOD AND WALK ON.