A new blog for a new year

I started this blog some time ago. It's focus was to be quilts with a bit about my cats. Things change, don't they? We moved, I got a new computer and a new email address. While it was possible for me to post to this blog as a guest author, I couldn't change the layout, etc. I know, some of you out there would have no problem with it, but, being truly computer challenged, I decided it was easier to just begin a new blog. You can visit it here. The new blog will be dealing with health issues, nutrition and lots of things. Hopefully, lots of quilts will pop up too.
That's it for now.
Sheila H.

2010 Jan. 3

Just a quickie for today. Still on the health thing. My husband told me he watched a show the other night and it said that they (nope, I don't know who "They" is/are) had tested the hair of people and that it was 50% corn. Yikes, how scary is that piece of info? We - my husband and I - already knew that the American food supply was full of corn, as I am probably allergic to it and we have been avoiding it like the plague for the last year and a half. Believe me, some form of corn is in all the processed foods people are eating. It could be high fructose corn syrup or cornstarch or dextrose, etc., but it is there in some form. Did you know that even common iodized table salt has cornstarch in it? It is used as an anti-caking agent. Avoiding corn makes avoiding gluten look easy. I know. I avoid them both.
More later.
Sheila H.

2010 Jan. 2

Haven't made up my mind yet about how frequently to post. But, since I started the new year off so well, decided I might as well post again today.
Health tip number 2: Stop eating all processed foods. That is a hard one. If you start reading labels, you will discover that you are not eating processed "foods," rather you are eating stuff that is manufactured and is all chemicals. Before I had all these health issues, I ate it all and didn't give it a second thought. When the drs. didn't seem able to help me, it fell to me to try and figure it all out and a very long and winding path led me to face the fact that I wasn't eating food, I was consuming chemicals. The things the FDA approves are unbelievable. We should not be eating these things and feeding them to all our children.
So what are all my heath issues? That is a lot to discuss. In April 2007, I woke in the middle of the night with a pain so severe in my left eye that my husband had to take me to the emergency room. The ER dr. put a painkiller in my eye, told me my pupil was huge, had me try to read the eye chart and discovered that I could only see the "E" and nothing else. He called the opthomologist who decided that he really didn't want to get out of bed right then and told me to come to his office the next morning. We did. To make a long story short, he told me it was a corneal erosion due to dry eyes and that the eroding happened to take place in my field of vision. He told me to put otc drops in it during the day and dry eye ointment at night. A few days later, I discovered that my left eye was protruding. Back to the eye dr. He tested me for Grave's Disease and sent me for a scan that would detect a tumor. My thyroid was "high normal" and there was no tumor. The eye dr. had no diagnosis for me. He said it was all due to "inflammation" and he could give me steroids for it, but as soon as I quit taking them the condition would return. I was told to come back if it got worse. It did. I went back and still no diagnosis or treatment. This went on for awhile. The eye dr. suggested I see my primary care physician. I didn't really have a pcp, but I got one and went to see him. In the mean time, I started doing research. Thank goodness for the Internet. Since the only sort of diagnosis coming to me was inflammation, it was a place to start. Long story short, thought maybe I had Celiac disease and the pcp tested me for it and said that it was negative - not enough antibodies showing up. I said, well why do I feel better if I don't eat gluten (that was my first eating experiment) and he said he didn't know. Plus, now in hindsight, I ask why would a person have any antibodies at all if gluten isn't a problem? I went back to eating gluten and got sicker than I already was. The eye thing was only one of lots of things that were going wrong with me health wise. I found if I told any dr. too many symptoms at once, they thought I was crazy and that seemed counter productive to me. So on any office visits I tried to stick to a couple of things and never got an answer for any of them. Sigh. Finally, the pcp sent me to an endocrinologist and he kept testing my thyroid and telling me that it was "high normal" and he couldn't treat me for a condition I didn't have. Meanwhile, I had started having anxiety attacks and that further convinced every dr. that I was crazy. Well, dear reader, I had lived through a lot of years of stress and had never had an anxiety attack before all this. The endocrinologist gave me a beta blocker to stop the heart palpitations and anxiety attacks. I am still on it and would like to get off of it because I believe that it was a lack of vitamin b12 that was causing it. That conclusion comes after a lot of research. Now, I have to go back to a new dr. and see if I can quit taking it. Well, this is just the beginning, but it is enough for now. More later.
Sheila H.

2010 Jan. 1

Wow. Can you believe 2010 is here?
I don't make any resolutions normally, but this year I have one - to start my blog again. Here it is. I am proud of myself for figuring out how to post from a new email address, which was accomplished by simply adding myself as a new author. Hope it works. No computer wizards here. Sigh.
A friend of mine has encouraged me to start it up again and to post about nutritional things I have learned and to discuss health issues. So not all the posts will be about cats or quilts. In fact quilts have taken a backseat in my life for the past year and 8 months. Cats, on the other hand, are ever present in my life. I have three of the little beasties: Twinnie, Lumpy, and Gizmo. I hope to feature them in a few posts from time to time. That should bore everyone. Hmm, which is more boring, do you suppose - my cats or my health issues? That's a tough one. Hopefully, my health insights will be of some use to a few people, but I doubt that my cat stories will be.
I leave you on this first day of the year and the first day of my return to blogging with a thing I have learned: don't eat artificial sweeteners. Period. They are unbelievably bad for you and no one should be consuming them. You can research this for yourself, as I have, and you will conclude that the very first kind thing you can do for your body and brain is to stop consuming any and all artificial sweeteners. In case you think that was an easy thing for me to give up, let me assure you that I used to drink lots of diet cokes every day and I missed them immensely at first. Also, if you are drinking them thinking that they will keep your weight down, you need to rethink that one. Some studies have shown that you will lose an average of 25 pounds in a year if you eliminate artificial sweeteners. Nope, I have lost track of where to look that up, but I am sure you can find that info if you look for it. In my case, I did lose 25 pounds in a year, but not drinking diet cokes was only one small change I made. (This blog will not be all about weight loss, by the way. It will be about eating healthy, etc.)
Happy new year to all of you.
Sheila H.

Found a new blog!

While surfing around on the computer today, I found a new blog that is written by Barbara Brackman. I am a huge fan of her scholarship in regards to fabric dating and the history of quilts. Her books have been an invaluable resource for me. When I work on my antique miniature quilt series, it is vital to date the fabrics correctly and to pair them up with a quilt pattern that was popular in the same era. Good reference books are worth their weight in gold to me! So, a big thank you to Barbara Brackman for all her good works. If I can figure out how to do it correctly, I will try to put a link to her blog up here.
Till next time, whenever that might be........
Sheila Holland

A Miniature Quilt

Remember Me

This is a miniature quilt that is 7 3/8" square. I designed it for a guild workshop. The blocks are 2" square, the sashings are 1/4" and the borders are 1/2". These are finished sizes. It is based on a mid-1800's antique signature quilt. The light center square is the signature square and people at the workshop signed the blocks for each other. Each block contains different fabrics, although all are in the blue or red family. (This was in keeping with the friendship aspect of the quilt - it was as though a different person had made each block. A green print was used for the sashing, border and binding. People at the workshop received a complete kit and only had to bring their own scissors, needle and thread and thimble. The project is completely hand pieced and all the pieces were pre-marked with not only the cutting line, but the sewing line as well. The kit also included complete instructions with card stock templates, so that the quilters could reproduce it on their own at a later date. It must have been a successful workshop, as later I saw one of the quilts displayed in a quilt show. I put mine on the back wall of a shadow box and put a reproduction of a tintype of my great-great grandmother in a frame in front of it. I will try to post a photo of that later. It is actually a double frame with the photo on one side and a sentiment that was written on the antique quilt that inspired the miniature: "This beauteous spread will say to thee, from one and all, remember me."
Till next time....

Sheila

Organizing tip for the Salinda Rupp Quilt

Above is an example of how I keep my blocks pieces organized. Here is how to do it:

cut a piece of freezer paper in a size that works well for the block size. For the 6" Salinda Rupp blocks, a piece that is 8 1/2" x 11" works well. Layout all the cut out pieces right side up on the shiny side of the freezer paper. Completely cover them with a piece of waxed paper. Iron on top of the waxed paper. This will adhere the pieces to the freezer paper and the waxed paper to the edges of the freezer paper. Will you get wax on the bottom of your iron? Yes, you will. While it is hot, I run it over a scrap fabric and then clean it with hot iron cleaner when I am done. That is why it is more efficient to do at least several blocks at a time, although it has been my experience that a quilter's iron can usually use a cleaning at any given time. The 8 1/2" x 11" size is a bonus in that you can easily fit them into clear vinyl notebook sheet holders and file them all in a standard inexpensive loose ring binder. This system works especially well for me as I am a hand piecer. To sew a block all I need is my sheet, a needle, thread and thimble. Which leads me to a word about hand piecing. Today most quilters think of hand piecing as a slow process and prefer to use a sewing machine. Do I love sewing machines? Yes, I do. We even collect antique sewing machines. Do I love to machine piece? Yes, I do - when it is the most efficient way to make a particular quilt. However, consider the following points:

• Can I take my sewing machine to the dr.'s office and sew while I am waiting for my appointment? Nope. Can I hand piece them? Yes.
• Can I sew a y-seam as easily as a straight seam when I hand piece? Yes.
• Can I hand piece while I sit on the couch with my husband/family and simultaneously watch a movie? Yes.
• Do I have to wind bobbins? Nope.

I find hand piecing to be very relaxing and fun. Should you give it a try? That is up to you.

Till next time......

Sheila