Finchlover, the only reason for not quilting in the ditch is that you won't be able to see your quilting stitches. If you're quilting with a machine it doesn't matter because they will all be the same size anyway. If you quilt by hand and have beautiful, neat, even, tiny quilting stitches, you wouldn't do them justice by hiding them in the ditch. You'd want to show them off by stitching a fancy pattern on the face of the quilt. I've been quilting for about 36 years, not sure how many I've made during that time, maybe 35 or 40. Some larger some smaller, some machine pieced and hand quilted, some all handmade. Made a few embroidered tops and hand quilted. I've only made one quilt that was machine quilted and I did quilt in the ditch. I made it about 20 years ago and I'm still using it. Made a few whole cloth quilts, small ones for babies, pink, yellow, blue, lavender, that had tons of quilting on them. I use a lap hoop to do the quilting and generally hand piece the tops. Haven't done an applique top in a long time, but I've been thinking about a cute butterfly pattern I saw recently on e-Bay I'd like to try. I confess I have several tops that need to be quilted, but since I use a lap hoop, I really do need cold weather to do them. My current project is a yo-yo quilt, which isn't really a quilt at all, but it takes a real long time to make and uses a lot of different fabrics and requires a lot of hand sewing. I just finished cutting out 4000 2" squares for a postage stamp quilt and I have a sack of 2" x 45" strips to piece together and cut out a four pointed star quilt top. Lastly, I'm still in the gathering stage of a silk quilt using men's silk neck ties. I have collected about 50 ties, taken out the stitching and facings and have the fabric neatly waiting until I have enough to start piecing. I figure for a nice sized quilt that's suitable for display I'll need about 250 ties. Using all the silk, I'll stabilize it with fusable interfacing, join the bits into thirty 12" squares, Then sew the squares together. The best part of the silk crazy quilt is the embroidery on each seam embellishing it and giving it character and charm. I made a small one (45" X 56")for my mom years ago and it was so much fun. If you find that you love quilting, you'll be hooked for life. In 1976 I was in the Navy and had a mid watch at the women's barracks. When I walked into the watch office the woman on duty was piecing a postage stamp quilt. She had a grocery sack full of tiny squares and several completed blocks. It hit me like a cold shower. When I got off watch the next morning I went home and cut up a bunch of old clothes, some tablecloths, several of my husband's shirts (he was overseas at the time) and I started quilting that day. Since then I've never lost the bug. I agree with bellaroma you should take a beginners class. It's better than teaching yourself and making all the mistakes that will cost you time and money and could ruin your drive to continue quilting. Learn the basics first. Cheryl P.S. I just scored a major stash of quilting fabrics at an estate sale. I got about 50 yards of various cotton quilting fabrics for $6. The lady was a quilter and had her stash separated into color groups, so I just scooped them out of her handy bins and into my shopping sack. Lord rest her dear soul, she had the biggest stash I've ever seen so I guess she was the winner.

It may not penetrate, but the purpose is to keep a barrier between the moisture in/on your skin and the air - so that the moisture can't evaporate so easily - my doctor told me that for very dry skin, cream is much better than lotion, it should say "cream" on the jar. I use Clinique moisture online for my face and Walmarts off brand of Eucerin cream in a pot for the rest of my body. I used the Eucerin brand cream and then tried the off brand and there was *no* difference, except for a radical savings price wise. I slather it all on *while I'm still damp from the shower* I only dab off the big water droplets. It won't be nearly as effective if you dry off the water. I have very dry skin, by following these directions it has really helped, for me anyway.

Ruthieg...I can't answer for Michelle...but I can tell you that I, personally, wasted large sums of money trying every lotion/cream/salve that was recommended by a pharmacist and/or dermatologist. The insidious thing about eczema and psoriasis is that not everything works for everybody and recommendations from real live sufferers are my best sources for tried and true products so I return the informational kindness forward when I'm able. This is a wonderfully helpful forum for those in need of actual experience info and I, for one, hope it continues to be for those in need. Anne

Was going to post what Mary C said but saw she already had. Unfortunately I see people still don't understand or perhaps don't want to.. Cetyl alcohol is used in most lotions. Even the priciest ones. It is an emollient. Can even be used e as a lubricant in mechanical applications. Isopropyl alcohol is an entirely different thing. It evaporate quickly and ids drying. This reminds me of the fear of the words gluten (glue) and sulfate (sulfur) in products. You have to check the actual chemistry and real science before you panic. They mean several things in different products.