Cutting Area reclaimed

Saturday work completed. That is, this is the work that got completed! The cutting mat is mostly cleared. Behind it the box on the left is the scraps that are to be cut next. The box on the right contains the scraps ro be cut up later! The pile up between those boxes are my squares and very wide strips for making backings for quilts. They don't get touched until I need a backing. Come to think of it, I'm going to need backing strips for the Carolina Crossroads. Hmm. Better get those ready before I go on retreat next weekend.

After church today I am leaving for Baltimore and a conference center at The Maritime Institute. I will be reading ordination exams there with Jim Young from Northfield, Minnesota, supervised by the Liturgics professor from The Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass. Since I have done this five or six times, I know how the procedure works; one thing is that Jim will bring his laptop computer and we will write our evaluations on it. Another is that the daily liturgies will be good stopping points from the heavy mental work, and a joy to have someone else prepare! I am taking my camera, but my dream of visiting Charm City Cakes will not come to be. They do not allow visitors "for liability reasons".

I will be back in Grand Rapids late Thursday night, wash clothes, sleep and pack again for the quilting retreat. Probably I won't have time to post until I get back again on Sunday late.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Stretching exercises

Pool at the hotel

Seeing old acquaintances

Cutting Disaster Area

After the workshop with Gwen Marston I left my sewing machine and its table in my Subaru Forester rather than bringing them into the house. In three and a half days I am going out of town. When I return I am jumping directly into the car the next morning and going on a quilt retreat. To go to that I will need to load my sewing machine and its table into the car, along with a lot of other gear. So I thought I would just leave those two heavy items already "packed".

This has left a sudden VOID in my sewingroom, and the opportunity to clean up some of the piles of fabric, as well as vacuum the floor.

The object of today's incomplete work was my "Cutting Station". You can see the outer edge of the green cutting mat with a pile of scraps "to be cut" piled on top. I worked on sorting these a bit today, and the pile is a little shorter. Nothing got cut up yet, just removing things that really should be somewhere else.

Went to a play "Going to St. Ives" tonight at Actors' Theater and had dinner first with friends at the culinary training center of the Community College. Their restaurant "The Heritage" is quite good, but the service is a little slow while they learn how to do everything.

Sara

Exercise today: 50 minutes in the pool + grocery shopping

Gratitudes:

New duvet cover came

Afternoon nap

Good discussion of the play afterwards

Gwen Marston, Teacher

The West Michigan Quilt Guild had Gwen Marston as our lecturer last night. She talked about "So Old, It's New". Many/most of her quilts are based on lessons she learned from old quilts under the tutelage of Mary Schafer. She thinks the current Quilt Police have forgotten how variable "the tradition" really has been, especially in the individuality of the shapes cut and placed "by eye".

For example, one of her own quilts was displayed to show that the border design does NOT have to be proportional to the size of the blocks! In fact she made it to dis-prove that statement by a Quilt Policewoman.

Today I took a workshop Gwen taught on "Liberated Stars".

We learned how to make stars without a pattern, just let the star points be "roughly" equal, or not equal at all.

Here's Gwen hard at work trying to convince "hardened" quilters that it DOESN'T matter if your points aren't the same size, or if your points don't meet, or if your points get cut off! If all those thing were to happen "correctly", you wouldn't have a "liberated" star.

It was a very difficult lesson, we are so brainwashed. However, by lunch time everyone was having a great time .

My production between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm was eight stars. I progressed from whacky points, to not-square centers, to not-square-Square-in-a-Square centers, and finally to have more that two points on a side. The star blocks are NOT the same size! But roughly nine inches finished.

Fun, fun, fun. Wish I had taken photos of the fabrics other folks were using, and how their progress was going.

Now I want to put these together with my "Follow The Star "quilt and get it finished for this winter tohang in the kitchen. Perhaps the title of that quilt will be "Follow A Star", that is, there are a LOT of stars, just pick one and follow it.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Mother and daughter team working next to me

Adrienne's New Zealand accent and enthusiasm

Dianne purchased lunch for me while she was out

Decided on Layout

Okay, I went back to Bonnie's original design.

The votes were coming in more in favor of this one, and I decided that by making the six Stars have yellow centers they were more visible.

And really, I couldn't face spending the time it would take to put sashing in! Boy, pure laziness makes the decision once again!

Furthermore, it's not really all together. This is a sham. It's really still in four pieces. Someone on the Mystery chat list suggested that it is a lot easier, in fact POSSIBLE to quilt a large quilt on a Domestic Sewing Machine (DSM) if you leave the top in pieces that are more manageable. So I'm going to try it.
I think this design is so busy that it will hide the many flaws I am bound to produce. But it will be good practice. I'm frequently saying that I am going to work harder on learning to quilt on my machine. Here's a chance to really do it.



Before the Guild meeting I met with two gals who also joined the Carolina Crossroads Mystery. We showed each other our tops, Pat Major on the left, and Pat Hogan on the right.



Sara

Gratitudes:
Got the top together!
Gwen Marston's liberated quilts
Really wintery

More on the Layout

Call this A. Adjacent.

Call this Sashing B. ------------------------------------Call this Sashing C.

There you have it! Three choices of the layout for Carolina Crossroads.
Which do you like, and WHY?

These photos are straight on, but the quilt is going to be set with the blocks on point. And I made six of the stars have yellow centers, and they will go in the middle two rows of the quilt. The outside Stars have dark centers.

Charlie and I had appointments to give blood this afternoon--and were both turned away because of our trip to Costa Rica! We might have been bitten by a malaria mosquito. And we can't give blood for a YEAR!

10:30 pm
I put 20 of the Ring blocks together today. I need 30 for the quilt as I enlarged the design. I had about 8 for the photos. Now I have had to take them off the bed so that DH can go to bed. Oh, dear.

You will not be surprized to hear that the votes coming in on which version you like are divided! Not clear what is the "winner", but black is the loser. What, you say, there is not artistic agreement among quilters! A shocking development.

Sara

Gratitudes:
Quilters are polite when asked their opinion
Charlie cooked dinner
Got all my GOE exams printed off today

Carolina Crossroads Layout

After church,

and the potluck,

and the annual meeting. . . . . . I managed to get to work on the Ring blocks of Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Crossroads mystery. There is ONE Ring block on the corner of my sewing desk. Ten others are in mid-construction, and there will be 20 after that. Last night I RE-constructed a number of the smaller blocks to get some variety into the dark yellow fabrics.

This whole ENDING of the project is getting very slow--I am not decided about whether or not I want to put it together the way Bonnie has. This indecision is interferring with every step of the project! I have to keep telling myself, "Just do the NEXT thing!" I don't have to do all of the steps, just the next step.

I laid out a sample of the blocks (with just the one Ring block), and I am wondering about separating the blocks with sashing.

But I also read the comment of someone else who was going to make the blocks into two different quilts. That's another possibility.

I think I will have to get some more blocks done before I can make a decision.

I lost a lot of time over a couple of football games. Too bad for the Packers!

Sara

No exercise today

Gratitudes:

People sang well and covered up my guitar errors

Finally got the primrose to Ann

Olive tapenade on crackers

All day Chorus practice & Whacky Basket How-To

Spent all day at a learn-the-new-spring-music event with the Grand Rapids Women's Chorus. It's a good way to get a running start on the numbers we are adding for our Spring Concert. We met at the Franciscan Center for the first time, and it was very nice--clean, spacious, good kitchen, great views, lots of pianos, and no one else was using the place. I was able to walk around the halls three times for 22 minutes after lunch. But I was REALLY ready to go home at 3:45. Unfortunately we didn't end until 4:30! Maybe it's because I haven't yet found that I LOVE the music. More work may well improve my attitude. No more work today, however.

Here's how the Whacky Baskets, shown Thursday, were made.

Take two squares of fabric, about 8", both Right sides up, and cut roughly through the middle.

Then cut the bottom half into three pieces. This will be the shape of the basket part of the basket. So think about that before you cut.

Now switch the pieces so that you will have two sets. Each set will have the opposite coloration from the other. This explains how our Bee made two quilts at once! Or, I should say, we made two sets of blocks at once.

I assume you know how to make a bias tube for the handle. Use a different or a matching color for your handle. We HAND sewed these onto the top piece of fabric for each block. We were forcing the Non-applique-ers in the Bee (I'm one) to do a little bit of applique. The handles could have been sewn down by machine, but not in our case.

Check that your handles will actually attach to the bottom of the basket when you are placing them!

Then sew the two halves of the basket block together. At some point square up the blocks. We're letting ours stay a little various in size.

SpoolSpinners are putting all the blocks with colored baskets in one quilt, and all the blocks with colered Backgrounds in the other quilt.

Here's a layout of some of the blocks that are not yet put together. I am planning a Twist-n-Turn setting with black sashing.

I need to work on this tomorrow afternoon and Monday so I have something to take to the Guild meeting on Tuesday. This is a design by Gwen Marston and she is the guest speaker. We want to show her what we are planning.

Sara

Steps today: 4620

Gratitudes:

Sparkling snow floating in the air

Sour slaw to put on my sandwich from the deli

Finished extra Stars for Caroline Crossroads

SpoolSpinners meeting & GOEs

Spent most of today working on the Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt. I decided that I want to change out some of the fabrics I was using for the Accent. They aren't bright enough to show up in the bigger blocks. So once I figured that out, I made some new parts. And then I realized that the un-sewing was a perfect activity to take to the quilting bee evening meeting. Usually I don't have ANY hand work, and certainly nothing I can dream up for the evening. This makes the two hours good only for conversation. So tonight I was able to "frog-stitch" (rip it, rip it) while engaged in conversation.
.

Here is the current status of our contribution to the Guild Raffle. We earlier made two sets of Whacky Baskets, using a design of Gwen Marston with polka dot fabrics for the baskets, and black & white backgrounds. Now our bee's applique experts have designed the borders and they are ready to go home with four different people for home handstitching.

Quite a number of the Bees in our Guild make a quilt for the Raffle, in addition to the main Raffle Quilt. This is the major moneymaking endeavor for the expenses of the next two years, AND for our support of The Tie That Binds (Neo-natal unit in regional hospital). The Raffle will be drawn at the Guild Biennual Show next October.

We are making a second basket quilt, which will go to someone in our own Bee. This will be a first. We have never known the person who won our quilt! I'm in charge of putting this one together, and the borders will not be nearly so complex! I'm thinking "A Tisket, a Tasket, a green & yellow basket". How many letters is that?

I will be reading the (Episcopal Church) General Ordination Exams again this year at the end of the month in Baltimore. I finally remembered to look up the questions tonight. Don't yet have the examinations to read, but I can be studying the questions and the background matierial for the readers. There are half-day essay exams for seven different areas of study. So 20-25 pages to read for each person taking the exam. I'll have a partner as well as a supervisor who also reads the essays of the six persons that the two of us are to evaluate.

"Are there any acts that are intrinsically evil?" That's the Ethics question. Hmm, looks like I'll get to learn a lot, as usual.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Bill McLaughlin teaching about Magyar music on NPR

Secret Sister interested in her gifts

A no-sugar cake at the Bee meeting!

Errands & Jazz today

Wednesday is always my rushing-around-town day, breakfast out with my Cursillo reunion group, tutoring two elementary school kids in reading for a half hour each, and then getting in 2000 steps at the Meijer's store before grocery shopping. Had a sugar low because I forgot to eat a granola bar after the tutoring, so I went out to lunch unexpectedly!

This Magi turned left when the two others went past the shepherds. Don't know exactly where his home is, but I think his horse is refusing the jump from the Bose to the piano.

We were invited to Ray and Dianne's for dinner and to go out to Noto's for jazz with Mary Rademacher, both of which we enjoyed.

Now I have finished the 20 Hourglass blocks for the Carolina Crossroads addition, but I haven't put the mini-blocks together to make the Ohio Stars. Hope to get that done tomorrow before the Spoolspinners meeting, and maybe have a chance to study Bonnie's additional instructions.
Sara

Steps: 6112 (includes 22 minutes of walking)

Gratitudes:
Reunion group conversations
Avontea's interest in gorilla calendar
Meal and time with Ray, Dianne, and Jean

Swim, Snow, Sew

30 minutes of Swimmercize this morning, and then another 27 minutes of aerobic laps under direction of the coach, Sandy. So I reset the Ticker for this next week.

We have had a light dusting of snow off and on since last night. Since 11:00 when I was home from the swimming pool, Zeke has been in and out of the house about five times. I let him out the front door when he "asks". He finds his favorite place in the front yard and rolls and rolls, wiggling on his back. He just loves the snow and wants to really get close to it! I give up on watching him and go back to the sewing room. About ten minutes later I hear a "Woof". He is waiting on the deck by the slider to come back in. Dark photo because of the clouds.

Zeke feels that after every outing he should get a treat. Dad agrees, but I don't.

Yesterday and this morning I made some of the extra mini-blocks for Carolina Crossroads so that I can make the quilt top longer to fit our queen bed. I have constructed the 20 railfences, 20 and 35 of two kinds of 9-patches, and the 4 half 9-patches. Tomorrow the 20 Hourglasses! I want to get the extra Onio Star blocks made before Bonnie's new clue on Thursday.

I have been working on Secret Sister stuff again this afternoon, and having fun with it. Our Bee, SpoolSpinnners, will meet on Thursday evening, so I want to have something ready then.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Mango for breakfast

Granola bars, all set for needed snacks

Zeke at play

Healthy Habits report

1.) Trying to stop naming this to myself as "exercize and diet" and set a groove in my mind of "Healthy Habits". Small thing, but a better attitude for me!
2.) My minute meter for the week is 60 minutes short of my goal. I want to blame the school system for delaying the start of school on Friday, and thus the pool was closed at 8:40 AM. No class. missed 50 minutes of swimercise. I know that I still had a choice at that point and could have walked, but I didn't. Nevertheless, 181 minutes of intentional motion in the week. Good job for me.
3.) Food habits are improving. No stops at fast food eateries. Several days of apples for afternoon snack. Cut out bacon with my twice-a-week eggs. Still craved sugar and caved a couple of times.

Result: New habits forming little by little. (Weight down 1.5 lbs.)

Making Carolina Crossroads longer

I have decided that the half- and quarter-Ohio-Star blocks Bonnie assigned to us must mean that the blocks will be set on-point. These will then be the setting triangles around the outside.
AND I don't want a square quilt (80"x80") for my queen bed;
I want to be able to tuck itunder the foot of the mattress.
SO having finished Step 6, I am now making enough additional 3.5" blocks to make another 4 more Ohio Star blocks, and 5 more undefined blocks (the ones she hasn't told us how to put together yet). I think adding a "row" of each to Bonnie's total will give me enough to make my quilt more like 80" x 92" before borders, and thus long enough to tuck.
Anyway, I have four more days before another Clue, with "nothing" to do! Might as well make more block pieces![Hmm, I guess this means I'm not giving this quilt away, but want it to be the first I've ever made for my own bed. Talking to you helps me read my own mind!]

Another UFO, hanging in front of my sewing room. These squares were samples of batiks, and sewn together at a quilting retreat last fall as a time-filler. As I contemplated it, it began to look like a Lenten Meditation. I plan to put on some embellishments of a very discrete and unimposing nature. But I don't know whether to apply them before or after quilting. I have little experience with embellishment. There is a silky gray ribbon hanging down on one side as an example.

And here are some UFO Puss-in-the-corner blocks I made when Bonnie Hunter was doing something like them. I wanted to do something different than she did for sashings, of course. There are 80 blocks, 6" finished, which should make a top 48 x 60. What is needed now is to find the right sashing and cornerstones.

This UFO is a tesselation block that I thought I had dreamed up by myself in about 2004, with great concentration! Then I found the same pattern in a book somewhere, discovering it wasn't new at all. This piece is about 28 x 28. So what on earth can that be used for? I guess I could turn it into a Neo-natal quilt.

The book group at church is starting to discuss Awareness by Anthony de Mello. We only read five of the short segments, but we had a rousing discussion around his statements:

1) we would rather sleep than wake up,

2) we should want our own happiness more than we love anyone else, and

3) he can't give us any help!

I think his intention is to get our attention, and then depend on ourselves.

A challenging book.

Sara

No healthy Habits report today.

Gratitudes:

That Lynne organizes the book group

Lunch with Kathie

Jordan almonds

Step 6, part2 Carolina Crossroads

Sixteen "half" Star blocks is the second part of Step 6.

If it was a whole Star, this would be the center square. Bonnie's directions included making all the diagonal edges be the straight of the grain. This leads me to think that these are the outside edges of the quilt (before borders). The regular blocks will be set on-point, and these will be the setting triangles. I hope that by making these center triangles all RED they will form a marker for the outer edge of the quilt top. Not really a border itself, but a visual dotted, red line of a sort. Hmm, it's just a guess--and I love red anyway.

So these are done. All that's left of Step 6 is the four one-quarter Star blocks. (These will be the corners of the quilt, I imagine.)

Otherwise, today I cleaned out a few file folders full of old financial statements. Some had to go through the shredder, and made PILES of shreds. Dumping the machine's container into grocery bags spilled some on the floor, and I picked them up tediously. This was in aid of filing MORE financial statements in the drawer, which had been full. Sometimes it's all I can do to get the statements into the right room if not file. But each time a new statement goes in, and old one should be purged, and isn't. Trouble is, there are stacks of papers that haven't even been moved into the right room! Stop that negative thinking. . . .I'm making progress. At the moment I am motivated. So ACT while motivated. [One of my gardening books said, "The best time to prune your shrubs is when the pruner is in your hand and you are standing next to the bush." That's more important than what season it is!]

Sara

Day off from Healthy Habits exercise.

Gratitudes:

Quiet day

Charlie made dinner

Mahler's Fifth at the symphony concert, never heard it before

Step 6 begun

Here's my first completed "A" block for Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Crossroads mystery. She posted Step 6 yesterday. We are to construct 16 blocks like this plus 16 setting triangles plus four corner setting triangles. Then another clue next Thursday. I hope my "dark" yellows are going to show up enough in the final product. Well, it's too late to change anything NOW. . . .except a border treatment.

It probably won't take a week to make the required blocks, but now we can exercise our brains to figure out how the rest of the pieces will go together into Block B, and then how the whole thing will be set together. So, back to the sewing room to make some more!

Now for some more UFOs:

Batik leaves cut in half diagonally and re-constructed, from a workshop taught by Dianne VanderMeer for the two Bees she belongs to. I have enough to make 12 full leaves and one acorn.

Pineapples made at a class while I was staying in St. Louis for a month in 2005.I have a goodly number of the yellows all made into chevron squares, but the leaves are a lot of work to get sewn down. Lots of them are cut, but I'm not looking forward to placing and sewing them.

And then Dianne gave me this top. I'm not sure, maybe she got the blocks in the Guild Block Party. She suggested I could use these to be the center of one of the quilts I send to the Lakotah reservation. So far, I'm not inspired!
Hmm, with two pineapple projects, it seems like a pineapple over-supply! But John, Jr. loves pineapple, so maybe they should turn into a quilt for him.


Sara

Healthy Habits: The pool was unexpectedly CLOSED because the school district was starting late. No swimming. I was so bummed I didn't do anything to make up for it.

Gratitudes:
Time to read
Working on Carolina Crossroads
Going to bed early

UFOs, page 2

Another that I started just this past year in an internet Mystery.

24 purple and yellow 9-patches with an additional two rows. I need to figure out how to put them together. An alternate block of the opposite colors? Or just sashing? I guess that's what stopped me; I didn't know what to do next.

This is a 25th anniversary idea for Fons & Porter. I organized 8 gals from my bee to make these blocks in Amish colors and black. Everybody got a full set by exchanging them. I got two sets--one for me (and F&P) and one for the Guild small quilt auction. I got ONE finished, it hung in the Guild show and the bidding was so low I bought it back. Then I sent it to F&P for their project. To my surprize they sent it back--I thought they would give them to some charity. This completely made me not want to finish the second one! So here sit the blocks.

From 2001 or so, here is my Row Robin. I made the row on the bottom with spikey triangles. As you can see not everyone managed to make their row the same length! I have sewn the rows together with something inbetween--black? Again I reached a point where I didn't know what to do next--or maybe a deadline of something else intervened.

Healthy Habits: Our Strength and Stretch group was bounced out of our meeting/exercise room by a union meeting, so we met at a mall to walk. Our instructor even showed up after a while and lead us in stretches about four times during the hour. I had taken my trekking poles and so did not get the ache in my back--but boy did my legs get tired! And this evening my knees are aching. However, I did get in 60 minutes of exercise.

Bonnie Hunter has given us the sixth step of Carolina Crossroads, which is making 16 9 inch blocks out of the 3" blocks we made earlier. And some Setting triangular blocks. So it is now clear that this quilt will have the block set "On Point". That construction is calling to me for tomorrow.

Sara

Gratitudes:

Trekking poles

Esther's retirement party

Bonnie's abundant giving

UFOs of the moment

I have started working on a new Secret Sister quilting project. So I can't tell you about it. Or show photos.
So, to make a report for today here are a couple of the UFOs (Unfinished Objects) I found in my sewing room.

Here's a top from 1997, that's TEN years ago. It was a mystery from ???Judy? Hopkins, that my previous Bee said we would test out. Actually it's even quilted, but without borders. So I need to put on borders AND quilt them. One is on so far. I intend to give this to my oldest granddaughter. When? you ask. Don't know.


Next, I once belonged to The Cotton Club, which sent out packets of 5" samples every month. Eventually I quit because I had a big stack of those samples, and no idea what to do with them. This was one idea from about 2-3 years ago: Cut the really dark ones into 4 squares for cornerstones, cut some in half for sashing on two sides, and then put saome in the middle, just as they are. This got a little big to handle, so I started another piece thinking I would sew them together after a while. But they don't match. The sashings aren't on the same sides.

And this one is the result of a fabric exchange at our Bee Retreat last fall. Everyone brought fat eights of FALL fabric for each of the others. I bought extra of my tan and brown fabric so that I could set all the others in this interlocking mable leave design. Cut some and sewewd some. Have fabrics left.Currently uninspired about this one.

Last for now, this is another Retreat project with a different group in 2005. Everyone brought 9-patches, black and white and bright in the middle, which we cut up and signed. Then we each got one of each other's quarters. After a while I sewed them all together because I was tired of all the little blocks. But this is a very odd size. And it has the signatures of a group of ladies I will probably never see again. My current plan is to put incorporate this into the backing of my next donation quilt.

Exercize today was walking on my street in the sunshine [!] with my trekking poles. The dogs across the way don't think I belong here and set up a ruckus every time I get out on my own driveway. So it is a noisy business to go for a walk. But I put in 18 minutes, which translated into about 1500 steps.

I am thinking about the idea of a Word for the Year, instead of a New Year's Resolution. Certainly haven't "resoved" anything for many years. Do most of that kind of thinking for Lent. The Word that comes to me for now is TRUST. Which is fairly close to "Let Go". If I can be more trusting, then I will be able to let go of the muchness in some parts of my life.

Trust. [Better than "faith" which always sounds to me like the right set of beliefs.]

Sara

Steps: 2880

Gratitudes:

Sharing/listening to my Reunion group

Solomon's little smile when I praise his reading

Working on quilting project

Carolina Crossroads - Step 5 finished

Today I finally finished the "squaring up" of the 100 Hourglass blocks for Bonnie Hunter's Mystery, so I can say they are DONE.

I can't figure out how she is going to turn these five different blocks into an 80" x 80" quilt top! There don't seem to be enough of them to make that size. But, Bonnie will resolve it all.

Meanwhile I am giving some thought to what I will do for my new Secret Sister this month. This may not be something I can BLOG about until the end of the year, because, of course, she is in my quilting bee.

I added an exercise monitor on the sidebar, from TickerFactory.com. Though I only swim twice a week, I'm using a swimmer to log all my minutes of exercise whatever form it takes.

Sara

Steps today: 2050 + 35 minutes pool exercise

Gratitudes:

Helpful coach at the community pool

Jokes at the footcare program

Quilting present from Helen Worst

2007 Quilting Report

10 UFOs from previous years were completed in 2007.

Oldest: -------------------------------------- Two made into One:

New idea: --------------------------Fun to finish:

11 New projects were started and FINISHED in 2007.

My favorite three:

Prayer book, April ---------------------Bargello, November

-------------Secret Sister, December

So a total of 21 projects FINISHED in 2007. Yippee!

Quilts given to charities: 7 Twin-sized, 4 Doll/Baby/Toddler

Projects begun in 2007 that are UNfinished--7


Having figured out this much of a report, I now need to go and pull out ALL the UFOs from all the previous years, and give a count of them! A couple of years ago I had 67. Then I finished some, and got rid of some. Time for another review and purging. But that will have to be another day!

Carolina Crossroads, Step 5

Here are the blocks I have been constructing last night and today. It is Step 5 of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt. These use our "accent" fabric and the light background. I have had to be creative in finding some more of the golden or "cheddar" yellow fabric. I had no idea when we started that I would need so much Accent. So everything in my blocks is NOT going to be dark plaids and light shirting fabrics. Some of the Accents actually have flowers in them, but small ones.

Someone in this mystery commented that this step took longer to make than earlier ones. That's the way it felt to me too, even tho' I did not use Bonnie's method, which involved cutting each triangle, or each pair of triangles separately. I used the Two Squares method: Make two Half Square Triengles and then crisscross them and sew again = Two Hourglass units. Nevertheless, seemed to take a while.

Sara

Steps: 3249 + one hour Stretch and Strength class

Gratitudes:

Sweetheart of a husband

Leftover prime rib for dinner

Sara Rachel called us, on her birthday (10)

Epiphany and sewing

Here are the three Magi as they appeared at our church this morning on Epiphany Day, carrying the gold, frankincense and myrrh. That's my husband, the priest in the middle with the thurible and incense pot. Each sang their verse of "We Three Kings", and the congregation sang the refrains while they paraded to the manger in front of the altar and dropped off their gifts.

So now it is time for the Magi of our creche in the livingroom to also begin their return home "by another way" without informing Herod of what they found.

In the afternoon and evening I was able to complete Step 4 of the Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt. The directions were given just after Christmas, and another Step came out this week, so I am still behind some of the happy workers, but the point isn't really speed. We all seem to be great fans of Bonnie Hunter for her scrappy style, and her complete generosity in sharing her patterns for free over the internet.

She says that after Step 5 we will have all the parts needed. I cannot imagine how these 40 triangular pieces are going to fit with the others, which are all square. Oh, well, wait and see!

Sara

Steps: 2735

Gratitudes:

Magi who could SING (doesn't happen every year)

Book group discussion about ministry WITH the aging

Time to sew