Tussy Mussy Is Ready To Go!

My Tussy Mussy pattern is all finished and she's looking just lovely with her adorable Nosegay block!  A month or so ago, I mentioned the history of the term Tussy Mussy, but in case you didn't catch that, I thought it worth repeating this fun eighteenth century bit of trivia. 

Tussy Mussy is another name for a floral Nosegay bouquet.  In the 1800's, women often received a Tussy Mussy from their suitors.  Each flower in the bouquet had meaning and the women often referred to a book, called The Tussy Dictionary, to decipher the floral message her suitor was conveying!  I thought it was a fun name for this quilt featuring a Nosegay block!

Click here if you'd like to order a Tussy Mussy pattern and I'll get it off to you mucho pronto! 

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I haven't been talking too much about what else is happening here in the Heartspun Quilts studio since I returned from my weekend at Mill Creek Settlement Retreat.  There's a reason why. 

I had just a wonderful time with my girlfriends at Mill Creek, and it was a very productive weekend as well.  Everything you want from a weekend away.  I came home feeling more relaxed, happy in the satisfaction of what I finished there, recharged and ready for an extremely busy work week writing patterns and other design work on the computer.  I had launched our Busy Work sew-along that Friday, and since I had been in a cell phone and internet black hole, I was anxious to check my emails and blog, so after a couple of hours of family time, I sat at my computer. 

While I was away, and my computer was totally turned OFF, Windows had done another update that corrupted my user profile AGAIN!  The same thing that happened to me a few months ago, happened again....despite having changed the settings on my computer to stop auto updates.  I'll save you all the descriptive "pretty" words I said, and the rage I felt...I'm sure you get the picture.  All of the stress came rushing back.  I had an extremely busy week starting the next day,  Monday, and needed the computer, so I had no choice but to work with tech support Sunday night to have it all fixed so I could start on Monday.  Monday morning I was able to work, and put in very productive days Monday and Tuesday.  Tuesday evening, while backing up all my work, I began to get warning notices that a hard drive crash was imminent.  Wednesday morning my hard drive crashed and burned.  At the busiest time of my year, when I needed it the most, my hard drive crashed.  No easy or quick fix for that....just hand the computer over to the geeks and let them do their thing. I have about 25 adjectives you can insert here for what I was feeling.  Take your pick!  {grin}  {long exhale}  {prayers to the Almighty for strength} 

I have another notebook computer that I take on the road with me, so I enacted Plan B, and tried to limp along for the week with the notebook.  I dared not talk with you about this "trauma" until my head was in a better place - hence my ability to catch you up today.  The great news was that I had backed up all my files and didn't loose any work product.  I lost a week of good production, but the past is gone and we just move forward.  A new hard drive naturally has nothing on it, so slowly but surely I've been re-loading my programs onto the computer. 

The morale of my story is that you can survive a hard drive crash and live to tell about it!  Even when it happens at the worst time possible.  I can't make up for the lost week of work, and some things won't be perfectly ready for market, but life goes on, right!  So, that explains why I didn't blog about Mill Creek, and haven't been as chatty.  I didn't want to Scrooge you with any Bah Humbugs about our love/hate relationship with our computers. 

I'm off to spend my day with my pal, Bernina.  She never causes me stress, oh no...quite the opposite!  We have a great time together!  Hope you can spend at least part of your day with your sewing machine, too!

Pam