June Finish

June was not the best month--one thing after another went wrong, mostly trivial things, but still. The worst of it was when we broadsided a deer on the interstate in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. My husband, who was driving, saw the deer emerge from the woods, headed for the highway at a full gallop. He managed to slow down from 70 to 55 mph, but we hit the deer so hard that the poor thing just exploded. My son, who was coming along behind us about a mile back, said there was only half a carcass left on the highway. Thankfully we had the pickup truck that day, wouldn't have wanted to think what would have happened in the car. Just got the truck back yesterday from the auto body shop--$2600 in damages.

The Department of Transportation is cutting back the growth further and further away from the highway; but at 70 mph, there's not a lot of time to react. The auto body shop and the insurance company both reported that there have been a lot of deer strikes this year because we had such a mild winter. Two winters ago, the deer stripped my evergreens at the front of the house. Night after night, I'd watch through the window around midnight, and three or four of them would come and munch on my plants. By the end of the winter, they consumed nearly all of the greenery. My neighbors' evergreens suffered the same fate. I didn't see the deer this past winter, so they must have found things to eat in the woods.

I did not finish the Mountain View Lodge quilt, which was my One Monthly Goal project for June; but I did finally finish the Star Crazy quilt. Yay! Only took me 10 years, lol.

I quilted it with an all over feather, Plumage, I think, from Willow Leaf. I got off on one of my rows and had to restitch a few places after I got it off the frame, but it didn't take long.

SO glad to get this done!

Credit where credit is due: Star Crazy design by Sue Garman, for Alex Anderson's The Quilt Show, 2009.

Company is coming tomorrow for several days--my sister-in-law who visits once during the summer and right after Christmas every year--and there are other activities planned for the month. Of course I'll be at the sewing machine this month, but I hesitate to commit to a One Monthly Goal. I have a few more days to think about it.

Another thing that took some of my time in June was hand dyeing. There's a Bonnie Hunter string quilt I want to make that uses 4 yards of solid yellow. I used to hand dye cotton years ago, and it occurred to me that it would be a lot less expensive to dye my own yellow than to purchase it. I kept all my supplies over the years, thinking I might get back to it; and I still have a bunch of prepared-for-dyeing (PFD) cotton.

I had to buy new dye, of course; and ProChem has evidently changed some of their formulations. The Golden Yellow I bought 20 years ago was more yellow than what I just dyed some fabric with. I now have some cheddar colored fabric that would probably look great with some Civil War repros. Clearly it will be a process to find the right yellow. In the end, it might be cheaper to just buy it, lol. Still having fun with it though, so I'll keep going.

More soap and lotions got made in June too--a new herbal shampoo bar that smells so lovely, another batch of hair conditioner, another batch of bug repellent, a spray to ease sunburn, some lavender violet face and body cream, and some honeysuckle rose salve. I picked the honeysuckle blossoms and infused them in a lightweight oil, along with some dried rose petals, to make the salve.

The timing of that turned out to be pretty good. My husband was pulling some vining weeds out of the junipers yesterday, and evidently the oils in the plant were toxic as he now has a bumpy red rash all over his arms and belly. We don't think it is poison ivy or poison oak--don't know what it is, truthfully. Haven't been able to identify it online.

Last night before he went to bed, he applied Cortisone on one arm and witch hazel on the other to see which worked better. The itching woke him up during the night, so he tried the honeysuckle rose salve and said that worked the best.

There are courses in herbology that you can take, and they are not inexpensive. I've always been a little dubious that herbs really can alleviate all the ailments they say they can; but I have to say, I'm beginning to be a believer. I bruised my tailbone two summers ago taking my granddaughter down a metal slide at the park, and after a year it wasn't better. I started applying a pain stick I made that contains arnica and cayenne red pepper, and it has helped so much that it mostly doesn't bother me anymore. I've used it for other aches and pains, and it does seem to really work well. Even if it's all in my head, if the pain goes away, I'm all in, lol.