GOEs and Retreat

My smiling partner for reading the GOEs was Jim Young from Northfield, Minnesota. You can see the papers on his left, and he is typing our paragraph of evaluation for this particular question into his laptop, from whence it magically zips to our supervisor and then to the Editors, and then finally to the candidate's Bishop and Commission on Ministry.

We had an evening and full morning of training for doing the evaluating before we started on Tuesday afternoon. We read and wrote reports on 35 three page essays, finishing by about 1:00 on Thursday afternoon. We sat at this desk together roughly from 9-12am, 1-5pm, and 7-9pm each day. It is certainly a good thing to have a person with whom you work easily! BUT I never left the hotel except to walk between buildings during the four days. I did do some hallway walking on two days.

I managed to get on an earlier than planned plane out of Baltimore, but could not do the same in Detroit. Luckily the snow in Chicago was not yet affecting Grand Rapids, and Charlie picked me up at midnight Thursday.

After a quick packing up of my quilting projects, I drove north to a retreat group on Friday and was set up in my corner by 3 pm.

That afternoon and evening I sewed together 2.5" strips from a swap to make a Scrap Bargello quilt, following the suggestion of Bonnie Hunter that SuperBowl weekend could be celebrated with a "Bargello Bowl". It was fun to think about other women all over the country working on this same idea on Saturday and Sunday. I finished the top about 1 AM Saturday. And Sunday afternoon I put the leftover loops into a neonatal quilt top.

Off and on I worked on the layering and pinning of the Carolina Crossroads sections. And I finished stitching one of them "in the ditch". That top is so busy that I don't think any quilting is really goinig to show up.

One of the reasons going on a quilt retreat is so much fun is the collaborations, or opinion-giving that is going on around the room frequently. Jan Lewis has just laid out the blocks for a "Turning Twenty" quilt and Sandy DeCarlo is giving her reaction to the placements. Carol Kuypers is looking on as she works on her own hand project. You can always get lots of "help" with decisions, but you have the final Veto over it all.

Sara

Exercise: very poor this week, except for the days I walked through airports

Gratitudes:

My OWN bed

Interesting meal conversations

Charlie's chili and Ray's hospitality for the SuperBowl supper

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

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!