Random MQ Stuff . . .

In my attempt to get rid of scraps of paper, yet hang on to info, I've decided to just chuck this here.

 

Fall 2025, we had a speaker at Minnesota Quilters who was freakishly productive! She loves Tula Pink fabrics and made lots and lots of quilts. Her talk was interesting and a bit intimidating . . . because she does all this along with a full time job and little kids!

 

What really struck me was . . . the connections I had to her. Her sister Nissa (Boeckman) was helping her. She had been on my speech team back in the New Prague days! And Jessie (her big sister) works at Mackin! I think the actual quilter was named Lori. 

 

Anyhow, I probably have more info somewhere else, but I'm getting rid of this scrap of paper.

 

On the back is info from Laura Nagel. I had asked her about getting rust out of an antique quilt. She recommended a product one can purchase off Amazon. I have a photo of it somewhere . . . and a DIY strategy is to use denture cleaner toothpaste with whitener. 

 

I had been gathering the information for my youngest son's mother-in-law and passed the info on to her promptly (including the aforementioned photo) but thought I might want to access that info myself.

 

Okay, back to breakfast. I just wanted to deal with a scrap of paper. I have so much stuff! 

2026 OneThing #26 - Post Lou's Music

I haven't been stellar about getting rid of stuff lately, but I've also been a bit stymied about how to best move forward. I figured if the goal was "posting," that took the pressure off me to actually get the items gone. Also, it's not as though they're just going to walk off on their own, right?

 

So I laid out Lou's music books and sheet music and posted them to Craisgslist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My post basically said, "My father-in-law loved music and singing!

These are the last of his music books and I'd love for them to find a fellow music lover to go to. Some of them are pretty old.

You may take some or all shown in the pictures. Message me if you want more info, specific titles, etc..

If you're in the southwest Twin Cities, I would consider dropping them off for you."

 

Well, within a day I had a response from Shayla in Montgomery. And a day after that, she came and got them off the porch swing! (I had given her our street address, warned her about Titus, and told her she could get them at her convenience.)

 

It makes me ridiculously happy when I can re-home things. I love that my focus was just to post it, but now it's gone. Yay! 

 

2026 OneThing #25 - Deal with MSRS HCSP

Victory!

 

When I left district 112 in 2017, I had earned a few thousand dollars in the Minnesota State Retirement System from my unused personal days. The money was deposited into a Health Care Savings Plan. 

 

I looked into being able to add money into it but was told that deposits could only come through a school district. So the money has been sitting and growing for nine years.

 

We no longer have dental insurance and I have dental challenges. When a toothache this spring meant I needed a root canal procedure, we knew we would just have to pay for it out of pocket.

 

I started wondering about the HSCP and accessing that money. I looked into what I had to do to get reimbursed a few months ago. I even went on their website and downloaded the necessary forms.

 

Last week, I set this as my One Thing to just finally follow through! Worst case, they won't reimburse the dental expenses. Best case, we'll have $1,500 deposited into our checkbook. 

 

I could post a picture of my sad little tooth stub before the crown was put back, but that's just gross. Instead, here's a picture of the envelope that I was able to take to the post office last week:

 

2026 OneThing #24 - Clean Sofa!

I have been meaning to do this since before Easter! Our dog likes to rub his itchy face on the edge of the sofa in the morning when he wants scritches. Sometimes he leaves some slobber or . . . other face juices. It grosses me out! Plus, we've been less diligent about keeping food out of the living room since Lou lived with us. (The kids used to sit on the vinyl floor looking at the cartoons on TV while eating . . . )

 

 I took before photos and yes, they're gross. The smudges and dirt from use are visible.

I vacuum often, but Titus sheds constantly. It gets thickest under the recliner footrests.  I had to empty the vacuum cleaner's tank quite a few times!

 

After all the vacuuming, I brought up our carpet shampooer and the hose attachment for cleaning furniture. I re-read the directions and got to work.

 

It was hard on my back, but I tried to be thorough in "scrubbing" all the bits and pieces of the sofa, then slowly pulling back to remove as much water as possible. It took quite a while! 

 

As I was cleaning, I realized that the fabric has so many wrinkles in it that it was really difficult to truly clean and pull out moisture. I also realized that some of what I was removing was probably the chemical treatment they used when it was new.

 

It's a microfiber fabric that looks similar to suede, but it's just chemicals treated with other chemicals to make it easy to clean. Ah well.

 

I left it open to finish drying out when we went to the lake. It smells better, even though it's not completely clean. 

 

My last realization was that it is better than before (nowhere near perfect!) and that we've had two sofas in forty years of marriage. I won't be heartbroken if this one goes away when we sell our Jordan house and move up to the lake. When I started talking to Louie about it, he initially thought I was suggesting we buy a new sofa for our Jordan house. No! I'll just be okay with saying goodbye to this furniture when the time comes. 

 

Oh! When I mentioned doing this before we headed up to the lake, my husband said, "It doesn't have to happen this week." I know what he meant, but because I had wanted it DONE in March, and April, and May . . . it was a super high priority for me. And I got it cleaned! 

2026 OneThing #23 IJWAWID ("I'll Just Write About What I Did") #2

I did actually set a goal for the past week, but it didn't happen for various reasons (and I may set it in an upcoming week), so I decided to once again just focus on things that DID get done! (Celebrate success - a powerful motivator.)

 

Probably the biggest accomplishment of the past week was finishing my challenge quilt. It was touch and go for a while. I wasn't happy with how the sawtooth stars went. The directions (which I followed carefully) resulted in flying geese that were too big for the central block. When I tried to use my Brother sewing machine's quilting foot and covered the feed dogs, it was a disaster. AND my "machingers" disintegrated! I threw them in the garbage, but not before I had little pieces of rubber fingertips all over my sewing machine and table.

 

In short, I wasn't happy with it, but I'm trying to focus on positives!

1. I got it done!

2. I tried the binding method I learned last year called "facing" and it went pretty well.

3. I like how I picked the fabrics to represent the four seasons.

  

I noticed the stray threads *after* taking the photo, but it's also at a wonky angle and I decided to leave it.

 

 The pieces that were in the envelope included the wavy aqua lines in the "summer" block (bodies of the geese), the red satin / silk in the "autumn" block (wings of geese - except I didn't have enough and one is made of cotton), and the grey silk in the "winter" block, turned into a rose-type flower.

 

There were other things I got done - coffee date with Deb P, pedicure, some general household stuff, . . . I am blessed and I had a good week. The Minnesota Quilt Show in St. Cloud was lovely. I got in more than 19,000 steps on two different days! 

 

 

2026 OneThing #22 - Downsize RaDon Fabric

My wonderful boss Don Sibbet, owner of RaDon, Inc., let me take lots of horse blanket fabric scraps home. I've used this sturdy fabric for lots of different projects (a few shown below) and gave some to other people to use, but still had a lot here.

 

I've been trying to get rid of excess in my sewing room and having two large bins dedicated to this fabric was too much. By refolding and rearranging, I got it all into one bin. (It's a full bin with a lid that doesn't quite shut, but it's one bin.

I used the emptied bin for larger pieces of different kinds of fabric. Slowly but surely, I'm trying to minimize my stuff and use what I have.

 

Ever since I rearranged my sewing room for my new piece of furniture, I've had a certain number of things that have "lived" in the guest room so I can deal with them / sort them / etc. It was 18 distinct items to start with! Every time someone is coming over to stay, I pile the things back into my sewing room to prepare the guest room. Then when the guests leave, I put the extra stuff back in the guest room so my sewing room has room to move. Right now, I've only got six bins of "stuff" in the guest room. That's a big improvement! I've been adding fabric to my bag for donating freebies, which I'll do in July at an MQ meeting.

 

Here are some of my fun RaDon projects:

 

Because we've got storage on a home cloud that I can no longer access, I can't share pictures of my Kitchenaid mixer cover, the carry sack for our campfire kettle, and so many other things I've made over the years! This ugly red bag is for garbage and recycling on the pontoon boat. I have a big rock in it to keep it from blowing away. (I think the mini red bag is one I keep with crazy quilting to put loose threads and stuff in . . . )

 

On to a new week! 

Random Paper Scraps and Recording Things Here

I grabbed all my random desk papers and stuffed them in a bag to deal with up at the lake. One of those scraps made me stop and contemplate goals, timing, priorities. I thought I'd record it here.

 We hope / plan to tackle these "big" projects in 2026:

• paint Jordan house
• replace deck
• hire roofing & sunlight
• downsize stuff
• electricity to pole barn
• plans for building

 

 

So far, we're focusing on the electricity to the pole barn. I've started looking at paint colors and made a chronological list for the Jordan house. I'm continually working on downsizing.

 

I will just be curious at the end of 2026 to see how much of this we've been able to achieve. Now the scrap of paper can go away.