No, I didn't find my missing row. Thank you to those who were concerned that I was losing my sanity, marbles, grip on life, etc., etc. as well.
It's about 40" square now. Continues to grow!
Here is a picture of my accomplishments from last night on the Seeds of Kindness. I have added a couple rows and laid out two more. I feel better now.
~Joan
I hope that's about as close as I'll ever come to cursing. I am one frustrated piecer. It seems I've lost a row of my Seeds of Kindness quilt.
In this picture, the right two rows are sewn together, but not sewn to each other or the quilt.
Here's what I've been doing to keep it all straight.
I have all my unsewn charms in a plastic folder, arranged by colors. When I'm ready to add a new row, I separate and choose colors somewhat randomly, but use twice as many reds and greens as anything else since that's what I have the most of.
Once I have laid out a row, I carefully take it off the design wall and pin a note to it. The note reminds me what direction the first piece goes as well as where on the quilt it will be attached. So it's a small (1-1/2" square) piece that has a square on it representing the pieced part of the quilt with a line where that row will be added, plus an arrow to show me the orientation of the first piece. Simple, huh?
I was brave (or stupid, as it now seems) and laid out 4 rows at once, knowing I couldn't possibly mix them up. Not with my foolproof system, you understand.
When we got home from piano/violin lessons today, I was eager to see how my new rows would look. After all, I had two more rows to attach to my quilt!!
I realized there was a problem at once. I was missing row 1/4. I had 2/4 and 3/4 sewn together and had started on 4/4 (you see how this works?). Because row 1/4 was missing, row 2/4 and the last row of the quilt did not fit together because the pieces were oriented the same direction!!
After searching the house extensively (which was futile from the first, because I always put everything back in my special SOK tote) and realizing that I'll probably find it as soon as I make all new plans for these rows that are already sewn together, I am posting this picture as a stopping place for now.
When quilting gives you lemons, make an apple core quilt.
~Joan, who is not feeling a whole lot like herself and isn't pleased with the poor woman she is right now.
PS: I'm working on this tonight until I can't keep my eyes open any longer. I heard a rumor that my WH is playing bridge with the munchkins, so I'm a free woman.
Smile if you like your haircut!! 
Side view of Emily's new layered look. I realize we're about 25 years behind the times. That's the way we like it!
Oh, is this a blog about QUILTS? Well, looky, looky at what I finished today. It's now ready to welcome all comers in my foyer.
Thanks for stopping by!~Joan
One of the reasons I haven't been blogging as much the past few days is that I've been busy giving many of my 9 other family members hair cuts.
This AM I cut my youngest daughter's hair. It was all one length, poker straight. She's growing bangs out. Her hair was about 6" past her 10-year-old shoulders. I trimmed it about an inch and cut layers in the last 6". It must have looked good because shortly afterwards (as in moments), my 16-year-old asked me to cut hers the same way. Here I am about halfway through aforementioned 16-year-old's hair. It was only then that I thought, "Stink! I should have taken before and after pictures."
Here is the side I haven't cut yet. It's nearly one length. The top layers were damaged from sun exposure, and they are a much lighter color than the rest of her hair. We can fix that (snip, snip). Emily's hair has some wave/curl to it, and it's very thick, so it's forgiving (and she is, too, so no chances of being sent to the nasty nursing home if she makes the decision later).
Here she is, half finished. Her left is not cut (YOUR right in the picture). And that's the hairdresser's forearm in the picture with the trusty scissors. She looks pretty happy for only having half a haircut. Think how ecstatic she'll be when I'm finished!!
In this picture you can see the layers. I cut it dry, so it isn't showing the natural curl now. I'll post an after-hair-washing picture later tonight.
Bet you can hardly wait!
~Joan
Here is the horrid foot I've been using for at least 3 years on my machine-quilting sewing machine. Why is it horrid? When I purchased the antique machine, the seller ground down the foot because I said something about not having much visibility. He did not consult me before changing its shape. Sewing with it like this is so frustrating. Every time the foot bumped into a seam (which was frequently), it wouldn't smoothly go over the seam. It would tend to just push the seam over and keep sewing a million stitches a minute. Each little faux pau was 20-30 minutes of unsewing while hunched over the quilt frame. It got so frustrating that I just haven't used it for a really long time. Which was a shame seeing it was taking up a lot of room in my bedroom.
Here I am replacing the faulty foot with one identical to the original. I tried (in vain) to find a replacement myself, but the machine is just soooooo old. Nobody I contacted had ever seen a machine "that old". I finally decided to see if the man I bought it from could locate one. Of course he could--matter of fact, he had one somewhere there at his shop (although after he said that and we disconnected, I did wonder if he was burning up the phone lines locating one).
Here it is ready for the maiden voyage...vroom vroom...ladies start your engines.
Usually when I have finished a quilt even this small, from the muscle strength it takes to move my heavy (80 lbs.) machine and the frustration of ripping out 6 zillion stitches nanometers apart (I always get sarcastic and exaggerate when I'm stressed), my shoulders are north of my ears (to quote my b-friend, Lisa) because of the strain.
I am ecstatic to report that my ears are in their usual south of my ears location, and I finished this in record time. This is an I Spy for some lucky baby girl at our church. The backing fabric is white with tiny yellow rosebuds. I have had the backing so long that I can't remember if I bought it or if someone donated it to me. I usually put a simple baby-friendly fabric on the back in case the mother thinks the front is too much for use in public.
~Joan
I thought I had a computer-for-idiots breakthrough, but the laugh was on me. I finally figured out how to add text over a picture, but evidently blogger does not support the type of file my dinky photo program uses. Alas, just when you would have been astounded by my computer savvy. I had placed an icon over what was formerly the 2 matching fabrics (I replaced the easiest one to get to).
You can either look back at my earlier picture or just imagine. In the picture above, the 4th column from the left, 3rd one down and the last column on the right 5th one down used to be the same fabric. The gold is the new one.
I don't have a progress picture for this week. The only progress I made was attaching the unattached row in this picture. Violin and piano lessons were only an hour total yesterday because of some other appointments for the violin teacher, seriously diminishing my available hand-sewing time.
~Joan
