Arbitrary Activities

Right up front I'll say this post is about a bunch of random stuff. Odds and ends of finishes, and a new beginning.

As most of you know, we've been doing quite a bit of clearing out. It also means there's been lots of cleaning. I mean vacuuming, de-cobwebbing, dusting, mopping, window-washing, woodwork-oiling and general back-breaking scrubbing.

We have a bottle of this, and I couldn't help noticing "New Zealand Springs scent." Goodness! Does this mean that springs in New Zealand smell better than they do here? How does a New Zealand spring smell when compared to... say, Hot Spring, Arkansas, or Steamboat Springs, Colorado, or Sarasota Springs, New York? Kiwi friends, can you enlighten me?

This Star Block is the February design for the Blogger's BOM. I'm sticking with my name for this quilt: Strawberry Fizz and Lime Pop.

The gray sorta washes out on this one, but it will be a great place for some detailed quilting.

Love that pink "pop" in the center.

Last year I won a giveaway for a "Spiced Pear Pincushion" kit. The pattern is from Sewn into the Fabric. I didn't care for the fabric in the kit, so I used six prints from a "Sunkissed" (by Sweetwater) charm pack to make it.

It's filled with three tablespoons of walnut litter, as the instructions called for, but I think another tablespoon or more would have made the pear a bit "taller."

It's so tiny!

I took advantage of a perfectly lovely day to photograph my finished Disappearing Four-Patch quilt. There's no green grass below, but check out the blue sky above.

The colors are certainly more vibrant together than those dull, ugly prints were by themselves.  

Such a pretty, crinkly look with the feather flower quilting.

57" X 69"

 Even the backing, made from left overs, looks nice on such a pretty day.

I photographed the quilt on my backyard clothesline.

If you don't have a clothesline, but would like to buy mine, it's for sale.

My clothesline comes with a house! 

As of last Friday, March 2, our house in West Des Moines, Iowa, is for sale. 

All that purging, paring down, Craigslist-selling, sorting, organizing, donating, and cleaning, was for a purpose. After 22-1/2 years, we're heading south - permanently - to a warmer clime. When last December I excitedly blogged about our lifestyle visit to The Villages, Florida, we weren't exaggerating when we said we liked it! So much that we're selling our house, all the furnishings, and my 2000 Volkswagen Beetle to move there! (Boo-hoo, about my Bug. It was my surprise, college graduation gift from my husband.) So, except for our personal possessions and my quilting necessities, we'll load up a 14-foot rental truck to make this HUGE change. We'll:

• go from a two-story (three-story, if you count my basement sewing room) to a single floor home.
• downsize from 1,860 square feet (not counting the basement) to approximately 1,500 square feet... when we pick out our new house.
• become a one-car family. Our new "second car" will be a golf cart, even though we don't golf.
• go further away from our Kansas City family and grandies who will be 1,200 miles/19 hours from us (boo-hoo again).
• move closer to our Tampa family and grandson who will be 90 miles/90 minutes from us.
• leave 22-1/2 years of friends and memories (boo-hoo even more) and God-willing, make another 20 years of friends and memories.

A Bible verse from Acts 17:26b (NIV) has recently become a new favorite, thanks to my friend Carla.

...and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.

God knows. He has determine that the time is set for us to go, and where we should live.

While we'd already planned to move this spring, we put sort of a "rush job" on it when, in mid-January, I learned that my degenerative osteoarthritis is worsening. No whinging here; just the facts. I'll need a hip replacement in the not-too-distant future. Better to be in a single-story home with a master suite on the main floor, where recuperation will be easier, than in a two-story.

So here we go! Let's sell a house. If you know anyone who's looking to move to Des Moines, and wants a clothesline well-kept home at a very fair price, do let me know. 

Now let the daily quilting housekeeping begin! Linda