B9

Boy, my latest call from Invision Sally Jobe sure extended Thanksgiving for me! No bad boys this time!

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B9

In about June, I noticed a new mole. At the time, I thought it was a scab because it was flaking. Between my neck and my chest, I couldn't see it without looking in a mirror, and it was so small, I couldn't see it without my reader glasses I use for crochet now.

I didn't think to check it regularly. I'd forgotten last year's lesson that people my age shouldn't get new moles or new freckles. Busy summer ensued.

One of my friends had four moles removed about three weeks ago. One turned out to be a squamous cell carcinoma. That reminded me to check my newest mole.

It was pretty alarming to discover it had tripled in size in just two months, and it was still flaking, too.

I called my doctor, expecting to be asked for my availability that week. The receptionist asked if I could come in right away.

I think that was scarier than the mole!


An hour later, the mole was gone. My doctor informed me that if this one was like the last one, I would now have "a history" because I had two bad boys in less than a year and a half. She said I would need to be more diligent in checking for new moles because "these little guys grow on you." She also scolded me for waiting two months to do anything about it.

She said it looked like a squamous cell carcinoma, and she asked if I'm using sunscreen.

YES! It also was in a location that doesn't regularly get exposed to sunlight, especially when riding my bike. Plus, most cycling jerseys these days have built-in sunscreen.

About 20% of squamous cells are complete mysteries because they aren't caused by UV exposure. I want to believe that's the category into which this latest little chunk of skin falls.

Two days later, I was notified this baby was benign, one of my most favorite words these days. Time to celebrate!

I'd informed my parents of the mole the day it was removed. So I quickly fired off a B9 email to my dad, who initially thought I was talking about aircraft. He provided his research, which I found at the time to be most humorous.

"When I saw the subject, I couldn't remember there being a B-9. I looked it up, and there was indeed a B-9. The official nomenclature was the YB-9 Bomber in 1931. It was the first all-metal Bomber manufactured by Boeing, and it's nickname was Death Angel."

So I just had a Death Angel removed from close to my heart!!!

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WIPped Cream

I first discovered the quarterly Ravelry quilt WIP challenge in the spring of 2013. I had seven WIPs listed back then. At the time, I had many more stored away and forgotten. Finishing one of those hidden and unlisted projects back in Summer 2013 and not being able to claim it as a challenge finish thrust me into my full list, which until this year, has not been fewer than 30 projects since Winter 2015.

For the fun of it, I thought it would be personally entertaining to go back to my first list and see how much progress I've made. I was right!

My Spring 2013 list featured a wall quilt with black and white photos I printed on fabric at home with my own printer, then lined with yellow strips because I was so caught up in cycling's then-popular yellow wristband fight against cancer.


I won't bother identifying the ignition of such craze because I am no longer a fan of said fallen hero. Yet I will always support the battle against cancer, and I currently am wearing a purple wrist band in honor of a co-worker who just began chemo for pancreatic cancer. My boss bought wrist bands for everyone on our floor, and everyone who knows my co-worker is donating vacation time and volunteering to take in meals.


I ended up throwing the yellow band PhD (Project half-Done) in Lizard's rag pile, where it has since been used to dry up Finish Line Teflon Bicycle Lube splotches and clean bicycle chains. A fitting end, since I couldn't really take it apart and put pink bands (to symbolize the fight against breast cancer) around photos of my manly husband. I mean, he wouldn't have complained, but he wouldn't have loved the feminine color surrounding quilted photos of him as much as he loves the soiled but classy yellow and gray rag...




Lizard Photo
Next was Hawaiian Punch, which, sadly, had not found a way out of deep storage but is yearning to be finished. I pulled it out of lurking when I composed this blog post, and it's now on my list of quilts that need to be finished this year.

This Quilt As You Go (QAYG) project, which began after a trip to Hawaii I won at a church singles dance, is hand-quilted and still on my current Ravelry challenge list. My trip to Hawaii back in 2004 infected me with incurable passion for Hawaiian quilting. I hope to create many more Hawaiian quilting-style projects once I finish a few more of my current WIP list quilts.


Third is Lizard Leftovers, comprised of bandana remnants over the years. One of my favorite go-to gifts for my husband for any occasion is a homemade bandana. I've collected reptile and southwest fabric for this purpose for going on 14 years now. Lizard Leftovers is done and beautifully showing off on our guest bed. Or comforting guests when the room is occupied.




Snowflake Heartbreak, a QAYG occasionally still on my list, has made a couple of significant contributions to my well-used kitchen potholder collection. The fabric content (velour... what was I thinking?!?) and my (former) shyness with FMQ stifled this project, which currently is in the "Not Sure I'll Finish This" box.




Round Robin Rage/Square Robbin is with owner Esca.


Esca's grandmother Donna is to be the recipient of Leaf Me Alone, which is a sandwiched flimsy now but still awaiting quilting and binding. I hope to knock it off the list this year, and preferably this quarter, since Donna's birthday is coming up next month. My goal for the last five years has been to finish it for her birthday or for Christmas. Now that all her grandkids have quilts, I think a quilt for her one remaining single and childless offspring is in order, so I'd actually like to finish Leaf Me Alone plus a (not started yet) masculine quilt for my nephew Mathew.


I haven't touched my green batiks project, Welcome to the Jungle, in years because for years I was afraid my free-motion quilting would ruin it. At one point, I wanted to enter it into a quilt show. So I longed to be able to quilt it perfectly.

I'm no longer afraid of free-motion quilting. I don't necessarily think this quilt will be ruined if I free-motion quilt it, even on a small machine, but sometimes I think it would be really cool if I hand-quilted it, mostly because it's SO huge and my current domestic sewing machine has such a small throat.


Fall 2013 saw an expansion of all WIPS I could think of for a total of 11. Wow, how I'd love to be down to that few WIPs again one day!!!

Of the 11, two are flimsies ready to be quilted (Leaf Me Alone and Welcome to the Jungle), two are blocks in waiting (Snowflake Heartburn and Hawaiian Punch), and seven are finished, including my most recent finish, Blue Scrappy Block a Month, finished with just three hours of March remaining!


I should change the name to Doodle because that's what I did for three solid nights after work! I practiced my free-motion quilting, and I'm pretty darned proud of a couple of motifs! Especially since, as I keep complaining and whining, my domestic machine has such a tiny throat!






The backing for this quilt of scraps and leftovers is the remainder of the dress fabric I sacrificed to finish Blue Floral Nostalgia last week. While Lizard was helping me sandwich Blue Scrappy Block a Day, he said he wouldn't mind a bandana made from the blue daisy print. Um, there's not enough left now!

I told him I'd bought it for a dress and opted to use it for backing so I didn't have to buy more fabric. He said it would make a beautiful dress.

Does that mean I get to look for more and buy it all over again??? With a yard extra for another bandana??? Ha ha ha!

Oh, my gosh, I found some, and it's half price!!! Turn me loose!!! (Lizard just said yes!!!!!!!!!!)


This quilt is more densely quilted than any of my previous quilts except for Skinned. Many years ago, one of my quilting friends once commented on a densely quilted best of show at a quilt exhibit that she wants her quilts to be soft, cuddly and used, not hung on a wall as art. That must have formed my opinion of dense quilting, even though I'd not really experimented at that point. I didn't do dense quilting because I wanted the quilts to be soft.

I recently read it's a common misconception, and that each wash causes densely quilted quilts to become even more soft. My niece has never complained about Skinned, which I densely quilted to make the colors seem more puffy and eye-catching (successfully!). I'm going to wash Blue Scrappy Block a Day a few times to test the theory. It's been washed once now, and I have to say, I still love this quilt, and even one washing improved the softness! Lizard certainly thinks so!


Blue Scrappy Block a Day is not perfect, but my free-motion quilting skills are improving. My favorite block has a boo boo I decided to leave because it's like an identity characteristic. Lizard says no one will ever notice. I think Sue and Maryann will, thanks to the Eye of Smaug inspiration...


This quilt does not have a destination yet, but I may have to consider Jo's suggestion to present it to my cancer-fighting co-worker. Especially if several washings render it soft.








This quarter's WIP list, thankfully, is, pleasantly, under 20!!! The goal once again (not met last quarter, although I did finish four from the list) is two a month for six, which would bring me down to... drum roll, please, 13, my lucky number!!! If that's not motivation, I don't know what is!!!

1. Hawaiian Punch

2. Leaf Me Alone

3. Welcome to the Jungle


4. Lizard Toes


5. Hexie Booboo


6. Tickled Pink, the Sequel


7. Teal Shadows


8. Goodbye Hollyhock Road


9. Snowflake Strip Bar


10. Green Floral Batik Postage Stamps


11. Lavender Sunrise


12. Giant Dahlia


13. Showcase


14. Snowbike II


15. Autumn Splendor


16. Cool Edge of the Rainbow


17. Citrus Whip


18. Time for Me to Fly


19. Venetian Squiggles
Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts, Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

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Permanent Change

I didn't donate blood in January or February because I was fighting a head cold. I have a standing appointment now at the mobile donation station near where I work during my lunch hour. I had to keep rescheduling for six weeks, thanks to the lingering cold.

In the meantime, I had four suspicious moles removed. The tests came back showing one was a bad boy.

When I was finally cleared for blood donation again, I asked, after filling out the typical questionnaire, if it mattered that I'd just had four moles removed. The phlebotomist asked about my test results. I explained one of the moles had been basal cell carcinoma, but they got it all, so I don't have to go back, and I don't have to do chemo or radiation.

I learned something new.

Lower-risk cancers. including basal cell cancers of the skin that have been completely removed, do not require a 12-month waiting period.

From now on when filling out those pre-screening questionnaires, I have to say, yes, I have had cancer. Wow. I then must go through an interview process to determine it was not leukemia or other blood-threatening cancers. I will still be able to donate.

But that one question has a different answer now for the rest of my life.

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Mole Goal

Most of my non-working, non-sleeping hours last week were spent trying to finish up this year's PDF snowflake booklet to benefit the Colorado-Wyoming Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

But not Tuesday.

On Tuesday, my beloved Lizard took the day off to take me for my annual mammogram, as well as a bone density screening and a mole screening.

When all was said and done, we still had three hours of daylight, so we took a little ride up Waterton Canyon. Such a thrill, now that The Lizard is working every weekend. We don't get many chances to ride together these days. So even though I'd just had four moles removed, we decided to take full advantage of the time together.

About two hours after we got home, the anesthesia wore off, and I had a three-ibuprofen sledgehammer pounding on my eyebrow. The doctor had told me my arm would feel like road rash. It never hurt, except for during the numbing shot. I wonder if having real road rash just a few inches from where the two moles had been caused the new mole hole to seem like no big deal.

The next morning, my eyebrow was significantly better; felt as if someone had taken a bite out of it. Well, I guess someone did...

That mole had first appeared maybe the day before Thanksgiving. I was so annoyed when I realized it wasn't another zit (which also is annoying, but at least zits go away) because it was on my face. I couldn't stand it!

The blasted thing grew and grew and grew every day. To me, it was uglier and uglier and uglier every single day. It was the first thing I saw when I looked in the mirror, and every morning, it had a degree of redness to it. I assumed I scratched it in the night. Because, by golly, it itched! Sometimes, it even hurt!

I did a bit of research around Christmas and learned people my age aren't supposed to get many new moles, unless they have excessive sun exposure.

Well, during an event like Ride the Rockies, I certainly do get excessive sun exposure. But I use sunscreen. Particularly on the arm where two of the other now-removed moles once resided. My family physician had been checking that pair every year because he didn't know at first it was two instead of one, and they were asymmetrical, a naughty no-no. Once he realized they were not quite twins, he continued to check them because of the color of one.

My family physician retired about three years ago. I did my annual exams only at my new gynecologist each year since then. I was dragging my feet picking a new family physician. I never asked the gynecologist to check my moles. So I was about three years overdue.

The new mole didn't get excessive sun exposure. My sunglasses, which I wear whenever I go outside in daylight, completely covered that area of my face. When riding, my helmet provided even more sun protection.

I didn't like this new mole. Not one bit.

I began the search for a new family physician in earnest, then noticed in the beginning of January that the new mole on my eyebrow was hard and scaly. And still growing astronomically. (To me.) In just six weeks, it had grown larger than the soft, non-troubling mole at the top of my nose that has never given me any grief since it first appeared in my teens. Back before I wore sunglasses. Back when it was okay to get new moles, as long as you kept an eye on them.

My new mole had become scary. Terrifying, actually. I knew this was not the appropriate behavior for a safe mole.

I made an appointment for the same day as my mammogram and bone density test because I'd already been able to take that day off.

The bone density test and mammogram procedures went without a hitch. I'm still awaiting results (perhaps today!), but I don't expect any complications this year.

My new family physician asked the story of my newest mole three times. She suggested we just go ahead and take any moles that concerned me, which I found so refreshing! I love this new attitude toward moles! Just take them. No sense in worrying about them. Those suckers on my arm would be history! No more worrying!

My new doctor asked if I'd be okay with a scar above my eyebrow. I told her I don't even wear makeup; the scar would be preferable to what seemed to me the blimp-sized aberration this mole had become.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay with a scar? I'm concerned about this mole, and I don't want to waste any more time trying to get you in to see a dermatologist, who might be able to leave you with less of a scar."

Her statement got under my skin just a bit; I'd already been worried. That's why I made the appointment. To have a doctor concerned about this mole, too, was a bit unnerving. Oh, well, it would be gone in a few minutes, and that would be the end of that. Three stitches later, we were on our way!

As we rode our bikes, I felt a million pounds lighter. I have been trying to lose weight, and I've actually had a bit of success. But the weight off my shoulders, or more specifically, my arm and my eyebrow, was palpable. I felt so free and so liberated!

I racked up 20 Charity Miles in Waterton, and I felt as if I was on top of the world.

Two days later, I got my first results.

That eyebrow mole was indeed basal cell carcinoma.

Last week's moles were the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth I've had removed over the years. The eyebrow mole was the first bad boy I've ever had. All of the rest were just moles.

I am so relieved and so thankful I was able to get rid of this nasty bump. And I guess now I'm glad it was on my face. Would I have noticed it if it was anywhere else? Would I have paid attention?

I don't know.

I have strict instructions now to pay close attention to all my moles, and I am to report any new moles as quickly as I can.

I can live with that.

Literally! I. Can. Live. !!!

I will live to see another day. I will live to ride again!

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Friday Fun

One of the sad things about having no television is missing out on incredible events like this one. You can darn sure bet we will NOT miss the movie when it is released next month! What the City of San Francisco did for this little kid... WOW!!!!!

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Friday Fun

We hope to register in the Ride the Rockies lottery this weekend. This video really put us in the mood!

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Golden Lining

On December 23, 2006, I was sitting comfortably in my reclining chair with a nice warm corn bag beneath my back, hand-stitching a quilt of favorite photos I'd printed on fabric, when suddenly the phone rang. The old kind of phone, with a rotary dial. It was quite a reach over the Amish quilt frame to answer the phone.

I nearly dropped the phone when I heard my friend Shonna's voice. Or should I say, tears. Yes, I could hear her tears across the phone.

We had scheduled a photo shoot in a couple of weeks for me to photograph her porcelain dolls. She made the most beautiful dolls, and they were her "children." Like me, she'd married very late in life. She'd never had a chance to be a mother to a child of her own. So she designed children. Perfect, life-like, photogenic children.


She asked if we could postpone the photo shoot.

"I have a tumor," she told me. "They found a tumor."

My heart literally stopped beating. I didn't know what to say.

"It's on my ovary," she explained. She couldn't even say "ovarian cancer" then. She was in shock. She'd taken care of herself. She was never in a high-risk category. She had annual checkups. She was scared, but she was trying to hang on. "I have to have surgery, and then I have to have chemo and radiation."

Trying to remain hopeful and upbeat, knowing what I knew about ovarian cancer, the silent killer that comes without symptoms until it's too late, I told Shonna we could do the photos as soon as she was ready. Any time. Day or night.


As I hung up the phone, I looked down at my stitching. I'd been outlining the Jordan River Temple, where she and her husband had been married just a few years earlier. I'd gone on a whirlwind temple excursion a few years earlier and attended four temples in one day, six temples in three days. At the time, the only place you could do that was the vicinity of Salt Lake. I was in Salt Lake to shoot my cousin's wedding, and I spent the day before the rehearsal dinner doing something I'd wanted to do for many years... as many temples as I could squeeze into one day. I'd shot three more temples that day, too, and eight in three days. The quilt on which I was working contained 12 of my most favorite temples.

I'd always thought my one-day temple adventure was pretty special because most of my peers at the time were boasting how many mountains they could climb in a day, and after my emergency back surgery a few years earlier, I was slower than ever going uphill, especially at altitude. I'd done something none of those mountain climbers had done, and it was my own little laurel. The quilt on which I was working was to be my medal.

Immediately I knew I had to finish the quilt and give it to Shonna. It would mean something to her, too. It would mean more to her because she might not get to make any more temple trips.

She'd always wanted to go with me to watch The Lizard during the Triple Bypass bicycle extravaganza. She'd wanted to make a quilt with me for the Denver National Quilt Festival. She'd wanted to go camping with us in Estes Park, then go hiking with us in Rocky Mountain National Park. For three years, we made plans for what we'd do when she got better. But Shonna never got better.


The second frame fabric for this quilt was my first attempt at dyeing fabric with shaving cream. I knew nothing back then about preparing fabric for dyeing. I think I used supermarket dye, and most of it washed out. But there was just enough of a hint of tan from the rose and brown I'd mixed to form a marble-like background, which was perfect for framing the temples.

I had a bit of gold lamé fabric left over from one of my adopted kids' Halloween costumes from a decade or so earlier, and I used that as a narrow border around each temple. A Golden Lining. The perfect name for the quilt!

The background fabric was linen in an antique ivory tone that harmonized perfectly with my tan shaving cream cotton. The backing was the same linen because I'd bought enough of it for both sides, unbelievably. I didn't have much experience with measuring for quilts back then.


I hand-quilted the outlines of each temple with gold metalic thread. I finished the quilt just as Shonna was beginning her third chemo treatment, and I presented it to her. She cried. She said it was the most beautiful quilt she'd ever seen. She especially liked the Jordan River Temple photo.

The quilt hung on her bedroom wall until Shonna died three years later, during her third battle with cancer and her third round of chemo.

I named the quilt "Golden Lining" because of what temples symbolize to me. I'd grown up with quotes and expressions about silver linings, emphasizing how we need to always look at the positive in every situation. Gold was more valuable than silver, and to me, the gold lamé really made the temples sparkle.

The Golden Lining now is Shonna is free from suffering. The Golden Lining now is she found reasons to smile and be happy, even when the going was rough. The Golden Lining is I got to be Shonna's friend.

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