SABLE

In case you missed my Facebook status...

I discovered a name for my syndrome: SABLE (Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy).
This was part of the editor's note in the June '09 issue of Better Homes and Gardens American Patchwork & Quilting magazine. I picked it up from the library this week. I must say that I have SABLE in at least three crafts: sewing, scrapbooking and knitting. Right now the only stash that gets used in the sewing one, although I'm very slowly knitting a shawl. At this rate it'll be done by the end of winter or maybe next winter.

I just thought of another, cross-stitching. There's enough embroidery thread in this house to outlast both Amy & I. :)

Happy crafting.

Another quilt give-away

Head over to Marie-Madeline studio to enter.

We've Figured Him Out by Ben Stein

The American Spectator
July 24, 2009
By Ben Stein

We've Figured Him Out

Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?

Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.

Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.

The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.

These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.

Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.

There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator.

An urban legend, but a super example!

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class..

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

(From an email I received from a family member.)

Classic Pooh quilt

Amy had taken a few pictures of the process.

I took this one after the top was all put together. Tomorrow I'm hoping to put the back on. I took the chenille idea from this blog.

Classic Pooh quilt

Amy & I found some Classic Pooh fat quarter bundles on clearance at Joann a while back, so we bought three of them and brought them home undid them and laid them in the dreaded pile. Since we cleaned up that pile we found that fabric somewhere near the bottom. The project went on my list. This last week I designed a quilt (thankful for graph paper; there's probably a more sophisticated way these days, but it worked well for me.), cut it out and now the top is pieced together. I'm working on sewing it to muslin because the Pooh fabric is not that great a quality. I bought some chenille-type fabric for the back. I've been so busy working on it the project that I didn't take pictures. I'll have to do that and post again.

The quilt ensemble

The pillowcase.

The quilt.

The sham.

The blurry celebration.

I'd like to say it's all done, but I've yet to put buttons on the back of the sham to hold it together better. The sham itself is a bit big, but I'm hoping that a larger pillow, say queen-size, will work better than a standard pillow.