Archive for September, 2010
September 19th, 2010 - Stash Report Week #38
I really should change the name of my blog to Fabric Junkie. All I seem to do is buy fabric. Who has time to sew? Or should I say who has time to sew using their own fabric?
 I worked on this baby quilt for my niece’s friend all week. It’s almost done. It needs a little more quilting and the binding, then it’s out of here. I quilted it on my new machine and I think there’s a learning curve here. It isn’t as great as I thought it would be but it’s okay. That BSR thing is a little different than regular free-motion quilting. It takes some getting used to. Practice, practice, practice!
 And here’s some fabric I picked up this week. Why? I don’t even like Asian prints but I just love these ones. The shop owner made up a quilt pattern using these fabrics and it’s just beautiful. The gold flowers make the outside border. This needs another brown print that I have in my stash and maybe this week I’ll get it sewn up and ready to quilt. Yeah right!
 And because I had some other prints in my stash that will work, I bought this colourway too. The big blue flowers on the left is from my stash. I don’t even remember buying it but it was there. It’s even washed, all ready to go. I’m only have enough for a twin. It’s a really easy pattern and maybe I can get 2 done in one week.
 Now for some numbers.
Fabric used this week: 0 yds
Fabric used YTD: 141.66 yds
Fabric added this week: 13.21 yds
Fabric added YTD: 165.86 yds
Net fabric busted: -24.2 yds
 So I’m not getting any closer to my goal this year but I’m going to keep on trying. At least the fabric I’ve bought is for a planned quilt not just for the stash. There’s some thinking involved here, not much though.
September 18th, 2010 - What To Do What To Do
Okay so this is not a quilting related post. It’s about my mom. She had cancer and was being treated with radiation and chemo in June to shrink the tumor before surgery. Before her surgery, she had a CT scan and then met with the surgeon the next day. He said the tumor hadn’t gotten any bigger and I thought to myself  “All that radiation and chemo and the thing hasn’t shrunk. Well, at least it didn’t get any bigger.” My mom had the surgery to remove the tumor and all was well.Â
We went to see the chemo doctor and he suggested she take another round of chemo more as a preventitive more than anything else. She is cancer free at this moment but you never know when it might return. Anyway she was taking chemo in the pill form and she didn’t have much of a reaction the first time around other than tiredness. So she agreed to do another round. The doctor said she would have to take more pills than first time and we thought okay.Â
 She had the prescription filled at her local pharmacy and she noticed that this prescription looked different than her last one in June. I called the pharmacy and asked why these pills looked different and they said the first round were 150mg of Xeloda and these ones were 500 mg of Xeloda. We knew she had to take more pills but the doctor didn’t say anything about the dosage size. I thought about this all weekend and called the cancer clinic on Monday for some answers. The doctor’s nurse said that these were right but I kept on saying but they are different from the first time. She was going on about the number of pills but not the dosage size. Finally it clicked in what I was saying and she said she would call me right back. I called my mom and said that somebody had made a mistake somewhere. Apparently my mom was supposed to be taking the 500mg not the 150’s, hence no side effects and no shrinkage of the tumor. The pharmacy had made the mistake and called to apologize to my mom. So what do we do now?
 We met with the doctor and he offered to write a letter to the Ontario College of Pharmacists and we thought that was a good way to go. The pharmacist has called my mom to apologize and my mom accepted her apology and  would like to speak to other family members about this. What for? She made a mistake and it should be noted that this happened and what if it has happened to others? And what if they billed for the larger dose and not the smaller one? Are there checks and balances that are not in place? This was a drug that had to be ordered in and didn’t someone notice it then? What if it was the other way around and they had given her a larger dose and it killed her? What then? So many what ifs and I don’t know what to do. My mom is not in to doing anything even changing the pharmacy. She has accepted the apology and doesn’t want anything to happen to the pharmacist. My mom is way too nice, even going through all this cancer treatment.
 When you get a prescription filled, you place all your trust in the pharmacist and I bet you don’t even think about the dosage or anything. You just trust that you got the right thing and all is well. I think we should be checking all our presciptions and even before getting them filled, we should be asking the doctor what he is prescribing and the dosage and then checking our prescription to be sure it’s the right thing.
 Okay I feel better now. It’s raining here so I think I will sew. Have a great day.
Mary-Kay
September 12th, 2010 - The Stash
 Hey are you guys trying to fool with my mind? I could have swore this is week 37, not 36 or 38. I just went back to a few posts and I think I’m right. This is week 37 and I’m not crazy. Whew! Now that I have your attention elsewhere I can begin my stash report. I bought way too much fabric last weekend and I still have not used anything from my stash that I could count. I worked on a few BOMs that I didn’t count as fabric in so again I can’t count them as fabric out. I’m also working on a baby quilt for my niece’s friend. It’s her fabric and she asked me if I would make it for her. Sure, why not! I’ve made this quilt before for her friend but I didn’t cut it out. What a pain in the a….! Seventeen different blocks, some plain and some with a little stitchery in them. I think I did a pretty good job distributing the different fabrics around the quilt. So without further ado, here’s my stash report.
Fabric used this week: 0 yds again
Fabric used YTD: 141.66 yds
Fabric added this week: 26 yds
Fabric added YTD: 152.65 yds
Net fabric busted: -10.99 yds
 Now I’m in the negatives and the sewing show is coming and a quilt show and……. I better get busy and start sewing something that can be counted. Have a great week.
Mary-Kay