Quilted pillows and scorpions.

I am still sewing circles of fabric into powder-puff sized quilt pieces.... 732 puffs so far. (When my husband sees me sewing now, he calls me Puff Mommy.) I have discovered that by overlapping the puffs just a little bit as you create the design, the puffs become more quilt-like and make a nice thick covering for the pillow top. I pin the puffs to the pillow, sometimes rearrange them a couple of times till I get just what I think is pleasing to the eye, and then I sew them on, one by one.

With each pillow I've made, the designs get more interesting and intricate, and my sewing keeps improving. I have long since stopped pricking my fingers with the needle, which happened on the first pillow-- I had to toss out about five puffs on that first one because they were stained with teeny red droplets of my blood, but thankfully, I didn't bleed on the pillow itself. (I have also learned that it's much easier to sew without bandaids on your fingertips.)

My cousins are getting quilted pillows for Christmas.... then my friends will be the next ones on my pillow gift-list.... and then I will make one for myself. Or two. Or three. I am always on the lookout now for fabric ends..... a yard or two of this, half a yard of that... blues and greens, prints and flowers.... I still watch in wonder as the circle of fabric becomes a kaleidoscope of color as the thread is pulled to make the flat circle into a fluffy puff. And I've made up my mind to try a quilt..... maybe not a king-sized quilt at first, but a lap-sized quilt that wouldn't seem so daunting to a self-taught sewer.

And the latest scorpion-- #4, but who's counting. I was sitting in the TV room the other night, sewing puffs from a fabric that was a mass of brown branches, green leaves, and oranges nestled inbetween the leaves-- when the thread was pulled on that fabric, the result was bright orange bits peeking through bright green.... very pretty.

So there I was, pulling the thread to make the magic, and out from under the sofa came a scorpion. Just walking slowly on the carpeting, as if he belonged there. And where were my hunter-cats, who usually alert me when there's an intruder in the house? Sound asleep in the breakfast room. I stepped around the scorpion and ran into the kitchen to get the industrial-sized can of hair spray from under the sink. (My secret weapon for the bug-world.)

I came back and sprayed that thing to within an inch of its disgusting little life. So much hair spray for that one little two-inch scorpion that the TV room smelled like a beauty salon on a Saturday afternoon. When the scorpion was so sprayed-up that he couldn't move, I smashed him with my shoe-- just enough to kill him without getting his insides all over the mint-green carpet.

Then I put the can on top of his lifeless body, went into the kitchen to get a plastic Ricotta container and the longest pair of BBQ tongs I have....... which I used to pick up the carcass, put it into the container, snap the lid on, and toss the Ricotta-coffin into the trash. All of that happened so fast that I didn't even have time to get grossed out. When all was said and done, though, my heart was going a mile a minute, so I ran upstairs to tell my husband that I had committed scorpiocide. "This is the 4th one! FOUR!"

And my husband said what he always says when he thinks I'm upset--- "Do you need a hug?"

He's lucky I didn't have a plastic Ricotta container big enough to hold him.